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Author: 


Angell,  Norman 


Title: 


The  great  illusion 


Place: 


New  York 

Date: 

1911 


MASTER   NEGATIVE   # 


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ORIGINAL  MATERIAL  AS  FILMED  -    EXISTING  BIBLIOGRAPHIC  RECORD 


>  992 


Angell,  *Sir  Norman,  1874- 

Tho  (Ti-eat  illusion ;  a  study  of  the  relation  of  military  power 
in  nations  to  their  economic  and  social  advantage,  by  Norman 
Angell.  8d  rev.  and  enl.  ed.  New  York  and  London,  G.  P. 
Putnam's  sons,  1911. 

3  p.  1..  iii-xviil,  407  p.    W. 

"TIm»  present  volume  Is  the  outcome  of  a  large  pamphlet  published  In 
Europ**  at  the  end  of  last  year  entitled  'Europe's  optical  illusion'." — Pref. 
dated  Aug:.,  1010. 

1.  War.    2.  War.  Cost  of.    3.  Dlsarmanient        i.  Title. 


Library  of  Congress 


n 


[Full  name:  Sir  Ralph  Norman  Angell, 
originally  Ralph  Norman  Angell  Lanej 


Copyright    A  2J)5985 


JX1952.A73    1911 
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Editions  of    The  Great  Illusion  appeared  simultaneously  in  the 


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The  Great  Illusion 


A  Study  of  the  Relation  of  Militaty  Power 

in  Nations  to  their  Economic 

and  Social  Advantage 


By 


Norman  Angell 


Third  Revised  and  Enlarged  Edition 


•  • 


•  • 


»  »   . 


G.  P.  Putiiam's  Sons 

New  York'  and  Ldndon 

(Tbe   lihtcfierboclter  preee 

1912 


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CWVUOHT,    XQXO 
BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

CorVRIGHT,    XQZX 
BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Published,  igxx 

Reprinted,  March,  1911  ;  October,  igtx 

February,  191a 


I 


Vie  fmtolictbockcr  ptc§§,  lUw  IMi 


PREFACE 

THE  present  voltime  is  the  outcome  of  a  large 
pamphlet  published  in  Europe  at  the  end 
of  last  year  entitled  Europe*s  Optical  Illusion. 
The  interest  that  the  pamphlet  created  and  the 
character  of  the  discussion  provoked  throughout 
Europe  persuaded  me  that  its  subject-matter  was 
worth  fuller  and  more  detailed  treatment  than  then 
given  it.  Herewith  the  result  of  that  conviction. 
The  thesis  on  its  economic  side  is  discussed  in  the 
terms  of  the  gravest  problem  which  now  faces 
European  statesmanship,  but  these  terms  are  also 
the  living  symbols  of  a  principle  of  universal 
application,  as  true  with  reference  to  American 
conditions  as  to  Eiu*opean.  If  I  have  not  "local- 
ized" the  discussion  by  using  illustrations  drawn 
from  purely  American  cases,  it  is  because  these 
problems  have  not  at  present  in  the  United  States 
reached  the  acute  stage  that  they  have  in  Europe, 
and  illustrations  drawn  from  the  conditions  of  an 
actual  and  pressing  problem  give  to  any  discussion 
a  reality  which  to  some  extent  it  might  lose  if 
discussed  on  the  basis  of  more  suppositious  cases. 
It  so  happens,  however,  that  in  the  more  abstract 

iii 


IV 


Preface 


section  of  the  discussion  embraced  in  the  second 
part,  which  I  have  termed  the  "Human  Nature  of 
the  Case/*  I  have  gone  mainly  to  American  au- 
thors for  the  statement  of  cases  based  on  those 
illusions  with  which  the  book  deals. 

To  the  hurried  reader  (the  vanity  of  authorship 
would  like  to  believe  that  he  is  non-existent)  I 
may  hint  that  the  *'key"  chapter  of  the  Erst  part 
is  Chapter  III;  of  the  second  part,  Chapter  II; 
of  the  third  part,  Chapter  11.  Though  this  method 
of  treatment  —  the  summarization  within  one 
chapter  of  the  whole  scope  of  the  argument  dealt 
with  in  the  section — ^involves  some  small  repetition 
of  fact  and  illustration,  such  repetition  is  trifling 
in  bulk  (it  does  not  amotmt  in  all  to  the  value 
of  two  pages)  and  I  have  been  more  concerned  to 
make  the  matter  in  hand  clear  to  the  reader  than 
to  observe  all  the  literary  canons.  I  may  add 
that  apart  from  this  the  process  of  condensation 
has  been  carried  to  its  extreme  limit  in  view  of 
the  character  of  the  data  dealt  with,  and  that 
those  who  desh-e  to  understand  thoroughly  the 
significance  of  the  thesis  with  which  the  book 
deals— it  is  worth  understanding— had  really 
better  read  every  line  of  it. 

One  personal  word  may  perhaps  be  excused  as 
explaining  certain  phraseology  which  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  the  author  is  of  English  nationality. 
He  happens  to  be  of  English  birth,  but  to  have 
passed  his  youth  and  early  manhood  in  the  United 


Preface 


States,  having  acquired  American  citizenship 
there.  This  I  hope  entitles  him  to  use  the  col- 
lective '  *  we  "  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  I  may 
add  that  the  last  twelve  years  have  been  passed 
mainly  in  Europe  studying  at  first  hand  the 
problems  here  dealt  with. 


N,  A. 


Paris,  August,  1910. 


SYNOPSIS 


TV/HAT  are  the  real  motives  prompting  intema- 
VV  tional  rivalry  in  armaments,  particularly 
Anglo-German  rivalry?  Each  nation  pleads 
that  its  armaments  are  purely  for  defence,  but  such 
plea  necessarily  implies  that  other  nations  have  some 
interest  in  attack.  What  is  this  interest  or  supposed 
interest? 

The  supposed  interest  has  its  origin  in  the  uni- 
versally accepted  theory  that  military  and  political 
power  give  a  nation  commercial  and  social  advan- 
tages, that  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  defence- 
less nation  are  at  the  mercy  of  stronger  nations,  who 
may  be  tempted  by  such  defencelessness  to  commit 
aggression,  so  that  each  nation  is  compelled  to  pro- 
tect itself  against  the  possible  cupidity  of  neighbours. 

The  author  boldly  challenges  this  universal  theory, 
and  declares  it  to  be  based  upon  a  pure  optical  H- 
lusion.  He  sets  out  to  prove  that  military  and 
political  power  give  a  nation  no  commercial  advan- 
tage; that  it  is  an  economic  impossibility  for  one 
nation  to  seize  or  destroy  the  wealth  of  another,  or 
for  one  nation  to  enrich  itself  by  subjecting  another. 

He  establishes  this  apparent  paradox  by  showing 
that  wealth  in  the  economically  civilized  world  is 
founded  upon  credit  and  commercial  contract.  If 
these  are  tampered  with  in  an  attempt  at  confiscation 
by  a  conqueror,  the  credit-dependent  wealth  not  only 
vanishes,  thus  giving  the  conqueror  nothing  for  his 
conquest,  but  in  its  collapse  involves  the  conqueror; 
so  that  if  conquest  is  not  to  injvire  the  conqueror, 


vu 


Vlll 


Synopsis 


he  must  scrupulously  respect  the  enemy's  property, 
in  which  case  conquest  becomes  eeonomically  futile. 

Thus  it  comes  that  the  credit  of  the  small  and 
virtually  unprotected  States  stands  higher  than  that 
of  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  Belgian  three  per 
cents  standing  at  96  and  German  at  82;  Norwegian 
three  and  a  half  per  cents  at  102 ;  and  Russian  three 
and  a  half  per  cents  at  81. 

For  allied  reasons  the  idea  that  addition  of  terri- 
tory adds  to  a  nation's  wealth  is  an  optical  illusion  of 
like  nature,  since  the  wealth  of  conquered  territory 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  population  of  such 
territory. 

For  a  modem  nation  to  add  to  its  territory  no 
more  adds  to  the  wealth  of  the  people  of  such  nation 
than  it  would  add  to  the  wealth  of  Londoners  if  the 
City  of  London  were  to  annex  the  county  of  Hert- 
ford. It  is  a  change  of  administration  which  may  be 
good  or  bad;  but  as  tribute  has  become  under  modem 
economic  conditions  impossible  (which  means  that 
taxes  collected  from  a  given  territory  must  directly 
or  indirectly  be  spent  on  that  territory),  the  fiscal 
situation  of  the  people  concerned  is  unchanged  by 
conquest. 

When  Germany  annexed  Alsace,  no  individual 
German  secured  a  single  mark's  worth  of  Alsatian 
property  as  the  spoils  of  war. 

The  author  also  shows  that  international  finance 
has  become  so  independent  and  so  interwoven  with 
trade  and  industry  that  the  intangibility  of  an 
enemy's  property  extends  to  his  trade.  It  results 
that  political  and  military  power  can  in  reality  do 
nothing  for  trade,  since  the  individual  merchants  and 
manufacturers  of  small  nations  exercising  no  such 
power  compete  successfully  with  those  of  the  great. 
Swiss  and  Belgian  merchants  are  driving  English  from 
the  Canadian  market;  Norway  has,  relatively  to 
population,  a  much  greater  mercantile  marine  than 
Great  Britain. 


Synopsis 


IX 


The  author  urges  that  these  little-recognized  facts, 
mainly  the  outcome  of  purely  modern  conditions 
(rapidity  of  communication  creating  a  greatenCcom- 
plication  and  delicacy  of  the  credit  system),  have 
rendered  the  problems  of  modem  intemational 
politics  profoundly  and  essentially  different  from  the 
ancient;  yet  our  ideas  are  still  dominated  by  the 
principles  and  axioms  and  phraseology  of  the  old. 

In  the  second  part— "The  Human  Nature  of  the 
Case"— the  author  asks.  What  is  the  basis,  the 
scientific  justification  of  the  plea  that  man's  natural 
pugnacity  will  indefinitely  stand  in  the  way  of  inter- 
national agreement?  It  is  based  on  the  alleged  un- 
changeability  of  human  nature,  on  the  plea  that  the 
warlike  nations  inherit  the  earth  that  warlike  quali- 
ties alone  can  give  the  virile  energy  necessary  for 
nations  to  win  in  the  struggle  for  life. 

The  author  shows  that  human  nature  is  not  un- 
changing; that  the  warlike  nations  do  not  inherit  the 
earth;  that  warfare  does  not  make  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  or  virile;  that  the  stmggle  between 
nations  is  no  part  of  the  evolutionary  law  of  man's 
advance,  and  that  that  idea  resides  on  a  profound 
misreading  of  the  biolog;ical  law  that  physical  force 
is  a  constantly  diminishing  factor  in  human  affairs, 
and  that  this  diminution  carries  with  it  profound 
psychological  modifications;  that  society  is  classify- 
ing  itself  by  interests  rather  than  by  State  divisions; 
that  the  modem  State  is  losing  its  homogeneity;  and 
that  all  these  multiple  factors  are  making  rapidly 
for  the  disappearances  of  State  rivalries.  He  shows 
now  these  tendencies,  like  the  economic  facts  dealt 
with  in  the  first  part,  are  very  largely  of  recent  growth, 
and  may  be  utilised  for  the  solution  of  the  armament 
difficulty,  not  by  inviting  the  invader,  through  defence- 
lessness  to  come  in,  but  by  showing  the  invader  that 
he  has  no  interest  in  going;  in  other  words,  by  so 
modifying  current  ideas  on  statecraft  that  aggression 
will  be  deprived  of  its  main  motive,  and  the  risk  of 
war  and  necessity  for  armament  by  that  much  lessened. 


PART  I 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  THE  CASE 

CHAPTBR 

I.  STATEMENT  OF  THE  ECONOMIC  CASE   FOR  WAK 
n.  THE  AXIOMS  OF  MODERN   STATECRAFT 
y/in.  THE   GREAT   ILLUSION      . 

IV.  THE  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  CONFISCATION 
V.  FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  MILITARY  POWER 
VI.  THE  INDEMNITY  FUTILITY 
VII.  HOW  COLONIES  ARE  OWNED    . 
Vin.  CONQUEROR  OR  POLICEMAN  ?  . 

PART  II 

THE  HUMAN  NATURE  OF  THE  CASE 

I.  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CASE  FOR  WAR 

i  n.  OUTLINE  OF  THE   PYSCHOLOGICAL '  CASE  FOR  PEACE    . 

ni.  UNCHANGING  HUMAN   NATURE  .... 

IV.  DO  THE   WARLIKE   NATIONS  INHERIT  THE  EARTH  ?      . 

V.  THE  DIMINISHING  FACTOR  OF  PHYSICAL  FORCE:    PSY- 
CHOLOGICAL RESULTS  

VI.  THE  STATE  AS  A  PERSON:  A  FALSE  ANALOGY  AND  ITS 
CONSEQUENCES 

PART    III 

THE   PRACTICAL  OUTCOME 

I.  ARMAMENT,   BUT   NOT   ALONE   ARMAMENT  .  . 

"^.  THE   RELATION  OF  DEFENCE  TO  AGGRESSION      . 

III.  METHODS 

APPENDIX . 


WAom 

3 

15 
29 

49 

63 

85 

106 

128 


149 

175 

193 
217 

258 
295 


333 
353 
364 
393 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

PART  I 
THE  ECONOMICS  OF  THE  CASE 
CHAPTER  I 

STATEMENT  OF  THE  ECONOMIC  CASE  FOR  WAR 

Where  can  the  Anglo-German  rivalry  of  armaments  end?^ 
Why  peace  advocacy  fails— Why  it  deserves  to  fail — 
The  attitude  of  the  peace  advocate — ^The  presumption^ 
that  the  prosperity  of  nations  depends  upon  their  poli- 
tical power,  and  consequent  necessity  of  protection 
against  aggression  of  other  nations  who  would  diminish^ 
our  power  to  their  advantage — These  the  univt 
axioms  of  international  politics      ....  3-1^ 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  AXIOMS  OF  MODERN  STATECRAFT 

Are  the  foregoing  axioms  unchallengeable? — Some  typical 
statements  of  them — German  dreams  of  conquest — Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison  on  results  of  defeat  of  British  arms 
and  invasion  of  England— Forty  millions  starving        15-28 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GREAT  ILLUSION 

These  views  founded  on  a  gross  and  dangerous  misconcep- 
tion— What  a  German  victory  could  and  could  not  ac- 

•  •  • 


XIV 


Contents 


PAOS 

complish — ^What  an  English  victory  could  and  could  not 
accomplish — ^The  optical  illusion  of  conquest — ^There 
can  be  no  transfer  of  wealth — The  prosperity  of  the 
little  States  in  Evirope — Gennan  Three  per  Cents  at  82 
and  Belgian  at  96 — Russian  Three  and  a  half  per  Cents 
at  81,  Norwegian  at  102 — ^What  this  really  means — 
Why  security  of  little  States  not  due  to  treaty — Mili- 
tary conquest  financially  futile — If  Germany  annexed 
Holland,  would  any  German  benefit  or  any  Hollander? 

39-4« 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  CONFISCATION 

Our  present  vocabulary  of  international  politics  an  historical 
survival — ^Why  modem  conditions  differ  from  ancient — 
The  profound  change  effected  by  credit — ^The  delicate 
interdependence  of  international  finance — Attila  and  the 
Kaiser — What  would  happen  if  a  German  invader  looted 
the  Bank  of  England — German  trade  dependent  upon 
English  credit — Confiscation  of  an  enemy's  property  an 
economic  impossibility  under  modem  conditions         49-62 


CHAPTER  V 

FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  MILITARY  FOWER 

Why  trade  cannot  be  destroyed  or  captured  by  a  military 
Power — What  the  processes  of  trade  really  are  and  how 
a  navy  affects  them — "Dreadnoughts"  and  business — 
While  "Dreadnoughts"  protect  trade  from  hypotheti- 
cal German  warships,  the  real  German  merchant]  is 
carrying  it  off,  or  the  Swiss  or  the  Belgian— The  "Com- 
mercial aggression"  of  Switzerland — ^What  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  the  futility  of  military  conquest—Govern- 
ment brigandage  becomes  as  profitless  as  private  brig- 
andage— The  real  basis  of  commercial  honesty  on  the 
part  of  government  .       ^       *       -       -       63-84 


Contents 


XV 


FAOB 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  INDEMNITY  FUIUITY 

What  is  the  real  profit  of  a  nation  from  indemnity? — ^How  a 
person  differs  from  a  State — An  old  illusion  as  to  gold 
and  wealth — What  happened  in  1870 — Germany  and 
France  in  the  decade  1870-1880 — Bismarck's  testi- 
mony ---..--  85-105 

CHAPTER  VII 

HOW  COLONIES  ARE  OWNED 

P 

Some  little-recognized  facts — Why  foreigners  could  not 
fight  England  for  her  self-governing  Colonies — She 
does  not  "own"  them — Her  experience  as  the  oldest 
and  most  practised  colonizer  in  history — Could  Ger- 
many hope  to  do  better? — If  not,  inconceivable  she 
should  fight  for  sake  of  making  hopeless  experiment    106-1 27 

CHAPTER  VIII 

CONQUEROR  OR  POLICEMAN? 

Alsace  and  Algeria — ^What  is  the  difference? — ^How  Ger- 
many exploits    without    conquest — Or    emigration — 
What  is  the  difference  between  an  army  and  a  police  ^ 
force? — The  policing  of  the  world — Germany's  share 
of  it  in  the  Near  East         -        -        -        -        .     128-146 

PART  II 

THE  HUMAN  NATURE  OF  THE  CASE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CASE  FOR   WAR 

"You  cannot  leave  htmian  nature  out  of  the  account" 
— Nations  too  good  to  fight;  also  too  bad — Material 
comfort  not  the  main  motive  in  many  himian  activities 
— Military  rivalry  needs  long  preparation — Such  rivalry 
does  not  arise  from  "hot  fit,"  therefore,  but  actual 


XVI 


Contents 


Contents 


xvu 


conflict  may  be  precipitated  thereby — Scientific  jus- 
tification of  international  pugnacity — Struggle  between 
nations  the  law  of  survival — If  a  nation  not  pugnacious 
in  some  degree,  it  will  be  eliminated  in  favour  of  one 
that  is — Pugnacity  therefore  a  factor  in  the  struggle 
of  nations,  and  must  necessarily  persist    -        -       149-174 


PAOB 


conquest  makes  for  the  survival  of  the  unfit  — Spanish 
method  and  English  method  in  the  New  World — The 
virtues  of  military  training — The  Dreyfus  case — ^The 
threatened  Germanization  of  England  -  217-257 


CHAPTER  n 

OUTLINE   OF    THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   CASE   FOR    PEACE 

The  illusion  on  which  conclusions  of  preceding  chapter  are 
based — A  real  law  of  man's  struggle:  struggle  with  \ 
Nature,  not  with  other  men — Mankind  is  the  organism 
struggling  to  adapt  itself  to  its  environment,  the  planet 
— Such  struggle  always  involves  greater  complexity  of 
organism,  closer  co-ordination  of  parts — Outline  sketch 
of  man's  advance  and  main  operating  factor  therein — 
The  progress  towards  elimination  of  physical  force — 
Co-operation  across  frontiers  and  its  psychological  result 
— Impossible  to  fix  limits  of  commtmity — Such  limits 
irresistibly  expanding — Break-up  of  State  homogeneity 
— State  limits  no  longer  coinciding  with  real  conflicts 
between  men  .        .        ,       .       -  175-192 

CHAPTER  III 

UNCHANGING  HUMAN   NATURE 

The  progress  from  cannibalism  to  Herbert  Spencer — The 
disappearance  of  religious  oppression  by  government — 
Disappearance  of  the  duel — ^The  Crusaders  and  the 
Holy  Sepulchre — The  wail  of  militarist  writers  at  man's 
drift  away  from  militancy     -        -        •        -  193-216 

CHAPTER  IV 

DO   THE    WARLIKE    NATIONS   INHERIT   THE    SARTB? 

The  confident  dogmatism  of  militarist  writers  on  this  subject    i 
— ^The  fa'^ts — The  lessons  of   Spanish-America — How 


CHAPTER  V 

IBB    DIMINISHING    FACTOR    OF    PHYSICAL    FORCB: 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  RESULTS 

Diminishing  factor  of  physical  force — Though  diminishing, 
physical  force  has  always  been  important  in  human 
affairs — What  is  underlying  principle,  determining  ad- 
vantageous and  disadvantageous  use  of  physical  force? 
— Force  that  aids  co-operation  in  accord  with  law  of 
man's  advance;  force  that  is  exercised  for  parasitism 
in  conflict  with  such  law  and  disadvantageous  for  both 
parties — Historical  process  of  the  abandonment  of  phy- 
sical force — ^The  Kahn  and  the  London  tradesman — 
Ancient  Rome  and  modem  Britain — The  sentimental 
defence  of  war  as  the  ptirifier  of  htunan  life — ^The  facts 
— The  redir«^tion  of  human  pugnacity         -  258-294 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    STATE    AS    A    PERSON:    A    FALSE    ANALOGY    AND 

ITS  CONSEQUENCES 

Why  aggression  upon  a  State  does  not  correspond  to  aggres- 
sion upon  an  individual — Our  changing  conception  of 
collective  responsibility— Psychological  progress  m  this 
connection — The  factors  breaking  down  the  homoge- 
neous personality  of  States  are  of  very  recent  growth 

295-329 


xvm 


Contents 


PAOB 

PART  III 

THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME 
CHAPTER  I 

AKMAMENT,  BUT  NOT  ALONE  ARMAMBNT 

Why  we  cannot  abandon  armament  irrespective  of  others — 
The  human  nature  of  this  part  of  the  problem— -Why 
armaments  alone  are  likely  to  lead  to  war— Why  agree- 
ments between  governments  are  likely  to  fail,  and 
must  in  any  case  be  of  limited  eflFect     -        -  333~35' 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  RELATION  OF  DEFENCE  TO  AGGRESSION'^ 

Root  of  the  whole  problem  is  the  force  of  the  motive  for 
aggression — Without  such  motive  the  necessity  for  de- 
fence disappears— Simultaneity  of  progress  towards 
rationalism  on  both  sides  of  the  fence       -        -      352-3^3 

CHAPTER  III 

METHODS 

Can  we  look  for  a  general  realization  of  the  real  principles 
of  international  relationship?— Journalistic  pessimism 
— And  vanity — How  ideas  have  moved  in  the  past — 
The  diflaculties  of  action  between  governments— Some 
general  principles— Is  England  to  lead  the  way?       364-392 


The  Great  Illusion 


Appendix 
Index 


393-401 
403-407 


PART  I 

The  Economics  of  the  Case 


The  Great  Illusion 


CHAPTER  I 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  ECONOMIC  CASE  FOR  WAR 

Where  can  the  Anglo-German  rivalry  of  armaments  end? — 
Why  peace  advocacy  fails — ^Why  it  deserves  to  fail — 
The  attitude  of  the  peace  advocate — The  presumption  that 
the  prosperity  of  nations  depends  upon  their  political 
power,  and  consequent  necessity  of  protection  against 
aggression  of  other  nations  who  wotild  diminish  our  power 
to  their  advantage — ^These  the  universal  asdoms  of  inter- 
national politics. 


IT  is  pretty  generally  admitted  that  the  present 
rivalry  in  armaments  with  Germany  cannot 
go  on  in  its  present  form  indefinitely.  The  net 
result  of  each  side  meeting  the  efforts  of  the 
other  with  similar  effort  is  that  at  the  end  of  a 
given  period  the  relative  position  of  both  is 
what  it  was  originally,  and  the  enormous  sacri- 
fices of  both  have  gone  for  nothing.  If  it  is 
claimed  that  England  is  in  a  position  to  maintain 
the  lead  because  she  has  the  money,  Germany 


4  The  Great  Illusion 

can  retort  that  she  is  in  a  position  to  maintain 
the  lead  because  she  has  the  population,  which 
in  the  end  must  mean  money.  Meanwhile, 
neither  side  can  yield  to  the  other,  as  the  one  so 
doing  would,  it  is  felt,  be  placed  at  the  mercy  of 
the  other,  a  situation  which  neither  will  accept. 
There  are  two  current  solutions  which  are  offered 
as  a  means  of  egress  from  this  impasse.  There 
is  that  of  the  smaller  party,  regarded  in  both 
coimtries  for  the  most  part  as  dreamers  and 
doctrinaires,  who  hope  to  solve  the  problem 
by  a  resort  to  general  disarmament,  or,  at  least, 
a  limitation  of  armament  by  agreement.  And 
there  is  that  of  the  larger  and  more  practical 
party  who  are  quite  persuaded  that  the  present 
state  of  rivalry  and  recurrent  irritation  is  boimd 
to  culminate  in  an  armed  conflict,  which,  by 
definitely  reducing  one  or  other  of  the  parties 
to  a  position  of  manifest  inferiority,  will  settle 
the  thing  for  at  least  some  time,  imtil  after  a 
longer  or  shorter  period  a  state  of  relative 
equilibrium  is  estabHshed,  and  the  whole  process 
will  be  recommenced  da  capo. 

This  second  solution  is,  on  the  whole,  accepted 
as  one  of  the  laws  of  life:  one  of  the  hard  facts 
of  existence  which  men  of  ordinary  courage  take 
as  all  in  the  day's  work.  Most  of  what  the 
nineteenth  century  has  taught  us  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  life  on  the  planet  is  pressed  into  the 
service  of  this  struggle-for-life  philosophy.     We 


The  Economic  Case  for  War         5 

are  reminded  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  that 
the  weakest  go  to  the  wall,  and  that  all  life, 
sentient  and  non-sentient,  is  but  a  life  of  battle. 
The  sacrifice  involved  in  armament  is  the  price 
which  nations  pay  for  their  safety  and  for  their 
political  power.  And  the  power  of  England  has 
been  regarded  as  the  main  condition  of  her  past 
industrial  success:  her  trade  has  been  extensive 
and  her  merchants  rich,  because  she  has  been  able 
to  make  her  political  and  military  force  felt  and 
to  exercise  her  influence  among  all  the  nations 
of  the  world.  If  she  has  dominated  the  commerce 
of  the  world  in  the  past,  it  is  because  her  im- 
conquered  navy  has  dominated,  and  continues 
to  dominate,  all  the  avenues  of  commerce.  Such 
is  the  currently  accepted  argument. 

And  the  fact  that  Germany  has  of  late  come 
to  the  front  as  an  industrial  nation,  making 
giant  strides  in  general  prosperity  and  well-being, 
is  deemed  also  to  be  the  result  of  her  military 
successes  and  the  increasing  political  power  which 
she  is  coming  to  exercise  in  Continental  Europe. 
These  things,  alike  in  England  and  in  Germany, 
are  accepted  as  the  axioms  of  the  problem.  I 
am  not  aware  that  a  single  authority  of  note, 
at  least  in  the  world  of  workaday  politics,  has 
ever  challenged  or  disputed  them.  Even  those 
who  have  occupied  prominent  positions  in  the 
propaganda  of  peace  are  at  one  with  the  veriest 
fire-eaters  on  this  point.     Mr.  W.  T.  Stead  is  one 


Id' 


1 1 


6  The  Great  Illusion 

of  the  leaders  of  the  big  navy  party  in  England. 
Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  who  all  his  life  had  been 
known  as  the  philosopher  protagonist  of  peace, 
declares  that,  if  England  allow  Germany  to  get 
ahead  of  her  in  the  race  for  armaments,  "famine, 
social  anarchy,  incalculable  chaos  in  the  industrial 
and  financial  world  would  be  the  inevitable  result. 
Britain  may  live  on  .  .  .  but  before  she  began 
to  live  freely  again  she  woiild  have  to  lose  half 
her  population,  which  she  could  not  feed,  and  all 
her  overseas  Empire  which  she  could  not  defend. 
How  idle  are  fine  words  about  retrench- 
ment,  peace,    and   brotherhood,    whilst   we   lie 
open  to  the  risk  of  unutterable  ruin,  to  a  deadly 
fight  for  national  existence,  to  war  in  its  most 
destructive  and  cruel  form."    On  the  other  side 
we  have  friendly  critics  of  England,  like  Professor 
von  Schulze-Gaevemitz,  writing:  "We  want  our 
[i.  e.  Germany's]  Navy  in  order  to  confine  the 
commercial  rivalry  of  England  within  innocuous 
limits  and  to  deter  the  sober  sense  of  the  EngHsh 
people  from  the  extremely  threatening  thought 
of  attack  upon  us.  .  .  .    The  German  Navy  is  a 
condition  of  our  bare  existence  and  independ- 
ence, like  the  daily  bread  on  which  we  depend, 
not  only  for  ourselves  but  for  our  children." 

Confronted  by  a  situation  of  this  sort,  one  is 
boimd  to  feel  that  the  ordinary  argument  of 
the  pacifist  entirely  breaks  down;  and  it  breaks 
down   for   a   very   simple   reason.    He  himself 


The  Economic  Case  for  War         7 

accepts  the  premise  which  has  just  been  indicated 
— ^viz.,  that  the  victorious  party  in  the  struggle 
for  political  predominance  gains  some  material 
advantage  over  the  party  which  is  conquered. 
The  proposition  even  to  the  pacifist  seems  so 
self-evident  that  he  makes  no  effort  to  combat 
it.  He  pleads  his  case  otherwise.  "It  cannot 
be  denied,  of  course,"  says  one  peace  advo- 
cate, "that  the  thief  does  secure  some  material 
advantage  by  his  theft.  What  we  plead  is  that 
if  the  two  parties  were  to  devote  to  honest  labour 
the  time  and  energy  devoted  to  pre3dng  upon  each 
other,  the  permanent  gain  would  more  than  offset 
the  occasional  booty.'* 

Some  pacifists  go  farther  and  take  the  groimd 
that  there  is  conflict  between  the  natural  law  and 
the  moral  law,  and  that  we  must  choose  the 
moral  even  to  our  hurt.  Thus  Mr.  Edward 
Grubb  writes: 

Self-preservation  is  not  the  final  law  for  na- 
tions any  more  than  for  individuals.  .  .  .  The 
progress  of  humanity  may  demand  the  extinction 
(in  this  world)  of  the  individual,  and  it  may 
demand  also  the  example  and  the  inspiration  of 
a  martyr  nation.  So  long  as  the  Divine  provi- 
dence has  need  of  us,  Christian  faith  requires  that 
we  shall  trust  for  our  safety  to  the  unseen  but 
real  forces  of  right  dealing,  truthfulness,  and  love; 
but,  should  the  will  of  God  demand  it,  we  must  be 
prepared,  as  Jeremiah  taught  his  nation  long  ago,  to 


8 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  Economic  Case  for  War 


give  up  even  our  national  life  for  furthering  those  great 
ends  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves.  This  may  be 
•*  fanaticism,"  but,  if  so,  it  is  the  fanaticism  of  Christ 
and  of  the  prophets,  and  we  are  willing  to  take  our 
places  along  with  them.' 

The  foregoing  is  really  the  keynote  of  much 
pacifist  propaganda.  In  our  own  day  Cotint 
Tolstoi  has  even  expressed  anger  at  the  suggestion 
that  any  but  religious  reaction  against  militarism 
can  be  efficacious. 

The  peace  advocate  pleads  for  "altruism"  in 
international  relationships,  and  in  so  doing  ad- 
mits that  successful  war  may  be  the  interest, 
though  the  immoral  interest,  of  the  victorious 
party.  That  is  why  the  "inhumanity''  of  war 
bulks  so  largely  in  his  advocacy,  and  why  he 
dwells  so  much  upon  its  horrors  and  cruelties. 

It  thus  results  that  the  workaday  world  and 
those  engaged  in  the  rough  and  tumble  of  practical 
politics  have  come  to  look  upon  the  peace  ideal 
as  a  counsel  of  perfection  which  may  one  day  be 
attained  when  human  nature,  as  the  common 
phrase  is,  has  been  improved  out  of  existence,  but 
not  while  human  nature  remains  what  it  is,  and 
while  it  remains  possible  to  seize  a  tangible  ad- 

«  The  True  Way  of  Life,  p.  29.  I  am  aware  that  many 
modem  pacifists  are  more  objective  in  their  advocacy  than 
Mr  Grubb,  but  in  the  eyes  of  the  "  average  sensual  man  pacifism 
is  still  deeply  tainted  with  this  self-sacrificing  altruism."  See 
Chap.  Ill,  Part  III. 


vantage  by  a  man's  strong  right  arm.  So  long 
as  that  is  the  case  the  strong  right  arm  will  seize 
the  advantage,  and  woe  betide  the  man  who  can- 
not defend  himself. 

Nor  is  this  philosophy  of  force  either  as  con- 
scienceless, as  brutal,  or  as  ruthless  as  its  common 
statement  would  make  it  appear.  We  know  that 
in  the  world  as  it  exists  to-day,  in  spheres  other 
than  those  of  international  rivalry,  the  race  is  to 
the  strong,  and  the  weak  get  scant  consideration. 
Industrialism,  commercialism,  is  as  full  of  cruel- 
ties as  war  itself — cruelties,  indeed,  that  are  more 
long  drawn  out,  more  refined,  though  less  appar- 
ent, and,  it  may  be,  appealing  less  to  the  common 
imagination.  With  whatever  reticence  we  may 
put  the  philosophy  into  words,  we  all  feel  that 
conflict  of  interests  in  this  world  is  inevitable, 
and  that  what  is  an  incident  of  our  daily  lives 
we  do  not  feel  should  be  shirked  as  a  condition 
of  those  occasional  titanic  conflicts  which  mould 
the  history  of  the  world. 

The  virile  man  doubts  whether  he  ought  to  be 
moved  by  the  plea  of  the  ** inhumanity"  of  war. 
The  masculine  mind  accepts  suffering,  death  itself, 
as  a  risk  which  we  are  all  prepared  to  run  even  in 
the  most  unheroic  forms  of  money -making;  none 
of  us  refuses  to  use  the  railway  train  because  of 
the  occasional  smash,  to  travel  because  of  the 
occasional  shipwreck,  and  so  on.  Indeed,  peaceful 
industry  demands  a  heavier  toll  even  in  blood 


till"! 


10 


The  Great  Illusion 


than  does  war,  a  fact  which  the  casualty  statistics 
in  railroading,  fishing,  mining,  seamanship,  elo- 
quently attest.    The  cod-fisheries  of  Europe  have 
been  the  cause  of  as  much  suffering  within  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century,  of  the  loss  of  as  many  lives; 
such  peaceful  industries  as  fishing  and  shipping 
are  the  cause  of  as  much  brutality. '  Our  peaceful 
administration  of  the  tropics  takes  as  heavy  a 
toll  in  the  health  and  lives  of  good  men,  and  much 
of  it,  as  in  the  West  of  Africa,  involves,  unhappily, 
a  moral  deterioration  of  himian  character  as  great 
as  that  which  can  be  put  to  the  account  of  war. 
Beside  these  peace  sacrifices  the  "price  of  war'' 
is  trivial,  and  it  is  felt  that  the  trustees  of  a 
nation's  interests  ought  not  to  shrink  from  paying 
that  price  shovdd  the  efficient  protection  of  those 
interests    demand    it.     If  the  common  man  is 
prepared,  as  we  know  he  is,  to  risk  his  Ufe  in  a 
dozen  dangerous  trades  and  professions  for  no 
object  higher  than  that  of  improving  his  position 
or  increasing  his  income,  why  should  the  statesman 
shrink  from  such  sacrifices  as  the  average  war 

» The  newspaper  Le  Matin  recently  made  a  series  of  revelations, 
in  which  it  was  shown  that  the  master  of  a  French  cod-fishmg 
vessel  had,  for  some  trivial  insubordinations,  disembowelled  his 
cabin-boy  alive,  and  put  salt  into  his  intestines,  and  then  thrown 
the  quivering  body  into  the  hold  with  the  cod-fish.  So  mured  were 
the  crew  to  brutality  that  they  did  not  eflectively  protest,  and 
the  incident  was  only  brought  to  light  months  later  by  wme- 
shop  chatter.  The  Matin  quotes  this  as  the  sort  of  brutality 
that  marks  the  Newfoundland  cod-fishing  industry  in  French 
ships. 


The  Economic  Case  for  War       ii 


demands  if  thereby  the  great  interests  which  have 
been  confided  to  him  can  be  advanced?  If  it  be 
true,  as  even  the  pacifist  admits  that  it  may  be 
true,  that  the  tangible  material  interests  of  a 
nation  may  be  advanced  by  warfare;  if,  in  other 
words,  warfare  can  play  some  large  part  in  the 
protection  of  the  interests  of  humanity,  the 
rulers  of  a  courageous  people  are  justified  in 
disregarding  the  suffering  and  the  sacrifice  that 
it  may  involve. 

Of  course   the  pacifist   falls  back  upon   the 
moral  plea:  we  have  no  right  to  take  by  force. 
But  here  again  the  "common"  sense  of  ordinary 
humanity  does  not  follow  the  peace  advocate. 
If  the  individual  manufacturer  is  entitled  to  use 
all   the   advantages   which   great   financial   and 
industrial  resources  may  give  him  against  a  less 
powerful  competitor,  if  he  is  entitled,  as  under 
our  present  industrial  scheme  he  is  entitled,  to 
overcome  competition  by  a  costly  and  perfected 
organization,  of  manufacture,  of  advertisement, 
of  salesmanship,  in  a  trade  in  which  poorer  men 
gain  their  livelihood,  why  should  not  the  nation 
be  entitled   to   overcome   the   rivalry   of   other 
nations  by  utilizing  the  force  of  its  public  bodies? 
It  is  a  commonplace  of  industrial  competition 
that  the  **big  man"  takes  advantage  of  all  the 
weaknesses   of   the   small   man — narrow   means, 
his  ill-health  even — ^to  undermine  and  to  undersell. 
If  it  were  true  that  industrial  competition  were 


13 


The  Great  Illusion 


always  merciful,  and  national  or  political  com- 
petition always  cniel,  the  plea  of  the  peace  man 
might  be  unanswerable;  but  we  know,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  that  this  is  not  the  case,  and  returning 
to  our  starting-point,  the  common  man  feels  that 
he  is  obliged  to  accept  the  world  as  he  finds  it, 
that  struggle  and  warfare  in  one  form  or  another 
are  one  of  the  conditions  of  life,  conditions  which 
he  did  not  make.     And  he  is  not  at  all  siure  that 
the  warfare  of  arms  is  necessarily  either  the  hardest 
or  the  most  cruel  form  of  that  struggle  which 
exists   throughout   the  universe.     In   any   case, 
he  is  willing  to  take  the  risks,  because  he  feels 
that  military  predominance  gives  him  a  real  and 
tangible  advantage,  a  material  advantage  trans- 
latable into  terms  of  general  social  well-being, 
by    enlarged    commercial    opportunities,    wider 
markets,    proteqtion   against  the    aggression    of 
commercial  rivals,  and  so  on.     He  faces  the  risk 
of  war  in  the  same  spirit  that  a  sailor  or  a  fisher- 
man faces  the  risk  of  drowning,  or  a  miner  that 
of  the  choke-damp,  or  a  doctor  that  of  a  fatal 
disease,  because  he  would  rather  take  the  supreme 
risk  than  accept  for  himself  and  his  dependants 
a  lower  situation,  a  narrower  and  meaner  ex- 
istence, with  complete  safety.    And  also  he  asks 
whether  the  lower  path  is  altogether  free  from 
risks.     If  he  knows  much  of  life  he  knows  that  in 
so  very  many  circtunstances  the  bolder  way  is  the 
safer  way. 


The  Economic  Case  for  War        13 

And  that  is  why  it  is  that  the  peace  propa- 
ganda has  so  signally  failed,  and  why  the  public 
opinion  of  the  countries   of   Europe,    far    from 
restraining  the  tendencies  of  their  governments 
to    increase    armaments,  is    pushing    them  into 
enlarged  instead   of  into   reduced  expenditure. 
They  find  it  universally  assumed  that  national 
power  means  national  wealth,  national  advantage ; 
that  expanding  territory  means  increased  oppor- 
tunity for  industry;  that  the  strong  nation  can 
guarantee  opportunities  for  its  citizens  that  the 
weak  nation  cannot.    The  Englishman  believes 
that  his  wealth  is  largely  the  result  of  his  political 
power,  of  his  political  domination,  mainly  of  his 
sea  power;  that  Germany  with  her  expanding 
population  must  feel  cramped;  that  she  must  fight 
for  elbow  room;  and  that  if  he  does  not  defend 
himself  he  will  illustrate  that  universal  law  which 
makes  of  every  stomach  a  graveyard.     And  he 
has   a   natural  preference   for   being   the   diner 
rather  than  the  dinner.    As  it  is  universally  ad- 
mitted that  wealth  and  prosperity  and  well-being 
go  with  strength  and  power  and  national  great- 
ness, he  intends  so  long  as  he  is  able  to  main- 
tain that  strength,   and   power,  and  greatness, 
that  he  will  not  yield  it  even  in  the  name  of 
altruism  until  he  is  forced  to.    And  he  will  not 
yield  it,  because  should  he  do  so,  it  would  be  simply 
to  replace  British  power  and  greatness  by  the 
power  and  greatness  of  some  other  nation,  which 


H 


The  Great  Illusion 


he  feels  sure  would  do  no  more  for  the  well-being 
of  civilization  as  a  whole  than  he  is  prepared  to 
do.  He  is  persuaded  that  he  can  no  more  yield 
in  the  competition  of  nations  than  as  a  business 
man  or  as  a  manufacturer  he  could  yield  in  com- 
mercial competition  to  his  rival;  that  he  must 
fight  out  his  salvation  under  conditions  as  he 
finds  them,  since  he  did  not  make  them,  and  since 
he  cannot  change  them. 

And  admitting  his  premises — and  these  pre- 
mises are  the  universally  accepted  axioms  of 
international  politics  the  world  over— who  shall 
say  that  he  is  wrong? 


t'i 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  AXIOMS  OF  MODERN  STATECRAFT 

Are  the  foregoing  axioms  unchallengeable?— Some  t3rpical 
statements  of  them— German  dreams  of  conquest— Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison  on  results  of  defeat  of  British  arms  and 
invasion  of  England— Forty  millions  starving. 

BUT  are  these  universal  axioms  tmchallenge- 
able? 
Is  it  true  that  wealth  and  prosperity  and  well- 
being  depend  on  the  political  power  of  nations,  or, 
indeed,  that  the  one  has  anything  whatever  to  do 
with  the  other? 

Is  it  true  that  one  nation  can  gain  a  solid, 
tangible  advantage  by  the  conquest  of  another? 

Does  the  poHtical  or  military  victory  of  a 
nation  give  any  advantage  to  the  individuals  of 
that  nation  which  is  not  still  possessed  by  the 
individuals  of  the  defeated  nation? 

Is  it  possible  for  one  nation  to  take  by  force 
anything  in  the  way  of  material  wealth  from 
another? 
Is  it  possible  for  a  nation  in  any  real  sense 

15 


ii 


1 


i 


I 


'^ 


i6 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  "own"  the  territory  of  another — to  own  it, 
that  is,  in  any  way  which  can  benefit  the  indi- 
vidual citizens  of  the  owning  country? 

If  England  could  conquer  Germany  to-morrow, 
completely  conquer  her,  reduce  her  nationality 
to  so  much  dust,  would  the  ordinary  British 
subject  be  the  better  for  it? 

If  Germany  could  conquer  England  would  any 
ordinary  German  subject  be  the  better  for  it? 

The  fact  that  all  these  questions  have  to  be 
answered  in  the  negative,  and  that  a  negative 
answer  seems  to  outrage  common  sense,  shows 
how  much  our  political  axioms  are  in  need  of 
revision. 

The  trouble  in  dealing  with  this  problem,  at 
bottom  so  very  simple,  is  that  the  terms  com- 
monly employed  in  its  discussion  are  as  vague 
and  as  lacking  in  precision  as  the  ideas  they 
embody.     All  European  statesmen  talk  glibly  of 
the  "collapse"  of  the  British  Empire  or  of  the 
German,  as  the  case  may  be,  of  the  "ruin"  of  this 
or  that  country,  of  the  domination  and  suprem- 
acy of  this  or  that  Power,  but  all  these  terms 
may   respectively,    so   it   appears,    stand   for   a 
dozen  different  things.    And  in  attempting  to 
get   at  something  concrete,   and   tangible,   and 
definite,  one  is  always  exposed  to  the  criticism 
of    taking    those    terms  as  meaning  something 
which  the  authors  never  intended. 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft        17 

I  have,  however,  taken  at  random  certain 
solemn  and  impressive  statements  of  policy, 
typical  of  many,  made  by  responsible  papers 
and  responsible  public  men.  These  seem  quite 
definite  and  unmistakable  in  their  meaning. 
They  are  from  current  papers  and  magazines 
which  lie  at  my  hand,  and  can  consequently  be 
taken  as  quite  normal  and  ordinary  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  point  of  view  universally  ac- 
cepted— the  point  of  view  that  quite  evidently 
dominates  both  German  and  English  policy: 

It  is  not  Free  Trade,  but  the  prowess  of  our  Navy 
.  .  .  our  dominant  position  at  sea  .  .  .  which  has 
built  up  the  British  Empire  and  its  commerce. — 
Times  leading  article. 

Because  her  commerce  is  infinitely  vulnerable,  and 
because  her  people  are  dependent  upon  that  commerce 
for  food  and  the  wages  with  which  to  buy  it  .  .  . 
Britain  wants  a  powerful  fleet,  a  perfect  organization 
behind  the  fleet,  and  an  army  of  defence.  Until  they 
are  provided  this  country  will'  exist  under  perpetual 
menace  from  the  growing  fleet  of  German  Dread- 
noughts, which  have  made  of  the  North  Sea  their 
parade-ground.  All  security  will  disappear,  and 
British  commerce  and  industry,  when  no  man  knows 
what  the  morrow  will  bring  forth,  must  rapidly  decline, 
thus  accentuating  British  national  degeneracy  and 
decadence."— H.  W.  Wilson  in  The  National  Review, 
May,  1909. 

Sea-power  is  the  last  fact  which  stands  between 
Germany  and  the  supreme  position  in  international 


a 


l8 


The  Great  Illusion 


1.-1 


commerce.  At  present  Germany  sends  only  some 
fifty  million  pounds  worth,  or  about  a  seventh,  of  her 
total  domestic  produce  to  the  markets  of  the  world 
outside  Europe  and  the  United  States.  .  .  .  Does  any 
man  who  understands  the  subject  think  there  is  any 
power  in  Germany,  or,  indeed,  any  power  in  the  world, 
which  can  prevent  Germany,  she  having  thus  accom- 
plished the  first  stage  of  her  work,  from  now  closing 
with  Great  Britain  for  her  ultimate  share  of  this  240 
millions  of  overseas  trade?  Here  it  is  that  we  un- 
mask the  shadow  which  looms  like  a  real  presence  be- 
hind all  the  moves  of  present-day  diplomacy  and 
behind  all  the  colossal  armaments  that  indicate  the 
present  preparations  for  a  new  struggle  for  sea-power." 
—Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd,  in  The  Fortnightly  Review, 
April  I,  1910. 

It  is  idle  to  talk  of  "limitation  of  armaments" 
unless  the  nations  of  the  earth  will  unanimously  con- 
sent to  lay  aside  all  selfish  ambitions.  .  .  .  Nations, 
like  individuals,  concern  themselves  chiefly  with  their 
own  interests,  and  when  these  clash  with  those  of 
others,  quarrels  are  apt  to  follow.  If  the  aggrieved 
party  is  the  weaker  he  usually  goes  to  the  wall,  though 
"right "  be  never  so  much  on  his  side ;  and  the  stronger, 
whether  he  be  the  aggressor  or  not,  usually  has  his 
own  way.  In  international  politics  charity  begins  at 
home,  and  quite  properly;  the  duty  of  a  statesman  is 

to  think  first  of  the  interests  of  his  own  covmtry." 

United  Service  Magazine,  May,  1909. 

Why  should  Germany  attack  Britain?  Because 
Germany  and  Britain  are  commercial  and  political 
rivals;  because  Germany  covets  the  trade,  the 
colrjiies,    and    the    Empire    which    Britain     now 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft        19 

possesses.— Robert   Blatchford,    Germany  and  Eng- 
land, p.  4. 

It  is  upon  their  national  security  (assured  by  naval 
supremacy)  that  their  economic  future— their  food, 
clothing,  and  housing— depends.— Admiral  Mahan  in 
the  Daily  Mail,  July  4,  1910. 

Great  Britain  with  her  present  population  exists  by 
virtue  of  her  foreign  trade  and  her  control  of  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  world;  defeat  in  war  would  mean 
the  transference  of  both  to  other  hands  and  conse- 
quent starvation  for  a  large  percentage  of  the  wage- 
earners.— T.  G.  Martin  in  the  World. 

If  the  command  of  the  sea  could  be  taken  from  us 
for  a  week  or  two  these  islands  and  their  riches  would 
be  absolutely  open  to  the  plunderer.  .  .  .  When  a 
landlord  was  shot  by  his  parishioners,  a  Catholic  priest 
asked  indignantly  from  the  pulpit.  What  right  had 
he  to  tempt  the  poor  people  in  this  district  to  murder 
him  by  going  about  tmarmed?  We  do  not  want  the 
Powers  of  Europe  to  be  tempted  after  this  fashion.— 
Mr.  J.  St.  Loe  Strachey,  editor  of  the  Spectator  in 
' '  A  New  Way  of  Life, "  p.  80.       ' 

We  offer  an  enormously  rich  prize  if  we  are  not  able 
to  defend  our  shores;  we  may  be  perfectly  certain  that 
the  prize  which  we  offer  will  go  into  the  mouth  of 
somebody  powerful  enough  to  overcome  our  resistance 
and  to  swallow  a  considerable  portion  of  us  up. — The 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  speech  at 
Greystoke,  reported  by  the  Times. 

What  is  good  for  the  beehive  is  good  for  the  bee. 
Whatever  brings  rich  lands,  new  ports,  or  wealthy 
industrial  areas  to  a  State  enriches  its  treasury,  and 
therefore  the  nation  at  large,  and  therefore  the  in- 


20 


The  Great  Illusion 


dividual. — Mr.  Douglas  Owen  in  a  letter  to  the  Econo* 
misty  May  28,  1910. 

Do  not  forget  that  in  war  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  international  law,  and  that  undefended  wealth 
will  be  seized  wherever  it  is  exposed,  whether  through 
the  broken  pane  of  a  jeweller's  window  or  owing 
to  the  obsession  of  a  humanitarian  Celt. — Referee, 
November  14, 1909. 

We  appear  to  have  forgotten  the  fundamental 
truth — confirmed  by  all  history — that  the  warlike 
races  inherit  the  earth,  and  that  Nature  decrees  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  never-ending  struggle  for 
existence.  .  .  .  Our  yearning  for  disarmament,  our 
respect  for  the  tender  plant  of  non-conformist  con- 
science, and  the  parrot-like  repetitionof  the  misleading 
formtda  that  the  "greatest  of  all  British  interests  is 
peace"  .  .  .  must  inevitably  give  to  any  people  who 
covet  our  wealth  and  our  possessions  .  .  .  the 
ambition  to  strike  a  swift  and  deadly  blow  at  the  heart 
of  the  Empire — undefended  London. — Blackwood's 
Magazine,  May,  1909. 


These  are  taken  mainly  from  English  sources, 
but  there  is  not  a  straw  to  choose  between  them 
and  current  German  opinion  on  the  subject. 
Thus  a  German  Grand  Admiral  writes: 

The  steady  increase  of  our  poptdation  compels  us 
to  devote  special  attention  to  the  growth  of  our  over- 
seas interests.  Nothing  but  the  strong  fulfilment  of 
our  naval  programme  can  create  for  us  that  importance 
upon  the  free- world-sea  which  it  is  incumbent  upon  us 


II 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft        21 

to  demand.  The  steady  increase  of  our  population 
compels  us  to  set  ourselves  new  goals  and  to  grow 
from  a  Continental  into  a  world  power.  Our  mighty 
industry  must  aspire  to  new  overseas  conquests.  Our 
world  trade — which  has  more  than  doubled  in  twenty 
years— which  has  increased  from  500  millions  sterling 
to  800  millions  sterling  during  the  ten  years  which  our 
naval  programme  was  fixed— and  600  millions  sterling 
of  which  is  sea-borne  commerce — only  can  flourish 
if  we  continue  honourably  to  bear  the  burdens  of  our 
armaments  on  land  and  sea  alike.  Unless  our  children 
are  to  accuse  us  of  short-sightedness  it  is  now  our  duty 
to  secure  our  world  power  and  position  among  other 
nations.  We  can  do  that  only  under  the  protection 
of  a  strong"German  fleet,  a  fleet  which  shall  guarantee 
us  peace  with  honour  for  the  distant  future.  —Grand 
Admiral  von  Koester,  President  of  the  Navy  League, 
reported  in  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung, 

One  popular  German  writer  sees  the  possibility 
of  "overthrowing  the  British  Empire"  and 
"wiping  it  from  the  map  of  the  world  in  less 
than  twenty-four  hours. '  *  (I  quote  him  textually , 
and  I  have  heard  ahnost  the  counterpart  of  it 
in  the  mouth  of  a  serious  English  public  man.) 
The  author  in  question,  who,  in  order  to  show 
how  the  thing  could  come  about,  deals  with  the 
matter  prophetically,  and,  writing  from  the  stand- 
point of  191 1,  admits  that: 

At  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  Great 
Britain  was  a  free,  a  rich,  and  a  happy  country,  in 


r 


t 


i\ 


22 


The  Great  Illusion 


I ., 


l! 


which  every  citizen,  from  the  Prime  Minister  to  the 
dock-labourer,  was  proud  to  be  a  member  of  the 
world-ruling  nation.  At  the  head  of  the  State  were 
men  possessing  a  general  mandate  to  carry  out  their 
programme  of  government,  whose  actions  were  sub- 
ject to  the  criticism  of  public  opinion,  represented  by 
an  independent  Press.  Educated  for  centuries  in  self- 
government,  a  race  had  grown  up  which  seemed  bom 
to  rule.  The  highest  triumphs  attended  England's 
skill  in  the  art  of  government,  in  her  handling  of 
subject  peoples.  .  .  .  And  this  immense  Empire,  which 
stretched  from  the  Cape  to  Cairo,  over  the  southern 
half  of  Asia,  over  half  of  North  America  and  the  fifth 
continent,  could  be  wiped  from  the  map  of  the  world 
in  less  than  twenty-four  hours!  This  apparently  in- 
explicable fact  will  be  intelligible  if  we  keep  in  sight 
the  circumstances  which  rendered  possible  the  building 
up  of  England's  colonial  power.  The  true  basis  of 
her  world-supremacy  was  not  her  own  strength,  but 
the  maritime  weakness  of  all  the  other  European 
nations.  Their  meagre  or  complete  lack  of  naval 
preparations  had  given  the  English  a  position  of 
monopoly  which  was  used  by  them  for  the  annexa- 
tion of  all  those  dominions  which  seemed  of  value. 
Had  it  been  in  England's  power  to  keep  the  rest  of 
the  world  as  it  was  in  the  nineteenth  century  the 
British  Empire  might  have  continued  for  an  unlimited 
time.  The  awakening  of  the  Continental  States  to 
their  national  possibilities  and  to  political  independ- 
ence introduced  quite  new  factors  into  Weltpolitikt 
and  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  as  to  how  long 
England  could  maintain  her  position  in  the  face  of  the 
changed  circumstances. 


I\ 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft       23 

And  the  writer  tells  how  the  trick  was  done, 
thanks  to  a  fog,  efficient  espionage,  the  bursting 
of  the  English  war  balloon,  and  the  success  of 
the  German  one  in  dropping  shells  at  the  correct 
tactical  moment  on  to  the  British  ships  in  the 
North  Sea: 

This  war,  which  was  decided  by  a  naval  battle 
lasting  a  single  hour,  was  of  only  three  weeks'  dura- 
tion— hunger  forced  England  into  peace.  In  her 
conditions  Germany  showed  a  wise  moderation.  In 
addition  to  a  war  indemnity  in  accordance  with  the 
wealth  of  the  two  conquered  States,  she  contented 
herself  with  the  acquisition  of  the  African  Colonies, 
with  the  exception  of  the  southern  States,  which  had 
proclaimed  their  independence,  and  these  possessions 
were  divided  with  the  other  two  Powers  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Nevertheless,  this  war  was  the  end  of 
England.  A  lost  battle  had  sufficed  to  manifest  to 
the  world  at  large  the  feet  of  clay  on  which  the  dreaded 
Colossus  had  stood.  In  a  night  the  British  Empire 
had  crumbled  altogether;  the  pillars  which  English 
diplomacy  had  erected  after  years  of  labour  had 
failed  at  the  first  test. 

The  appearance  of  a  book  by  Dr.  Rudolph 
Martin,  a  German  Privy  Councillor,  "whose 
opinions  may  be  taken  as  expressing  the  great 
bulk  of  the  educated  classes  of  Germany,"  em- 
phasizes how  much  the  foregoing  represents  very 
common  aspirations  in  Germany.  Dr.  Martin 
says: 


r 


24 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  future  of  Germany  demands  the  absorption 
of  Austria-Hungary,  the  Balkan  States,  and  Turkey, 
with  the  North  Sea  ports.  Her  realms  will  stretch 
towards  the  east  from  Berlin  to  Bagdad,  and  to 
Antwerp  on  the  west. 

For  the  moment  we  are  assured  there  is  no 
immediate  intention  of  seizing  the  countries  in 
question,  nor  is  Germany's  hand  actually  ready 
yet  to  clutch  Belgium  and  Holland  within  the 
net  of  the  Federated  Empire. 

"But,"  he  says,  ''all  these  changes  will  happen 
within  our  epoch, "  and  he  fixes  the  time  when  the 
map  of  Europe  will  thus  be  rearranged  as  from 
twenty  to  thirty  years  hence. 

But  Germany,  according  to  the  writer,  means 
to  fight  while  she  has  a  penny  left  and  a  man  to 
carry  arms,  for  she  is,  he  says,  "face  to  face  with 
a  crisis  which  is  more  serious  even  than  that  of 
Jena." 

And,  recognising  the  positions,  she  is  only 
waiting  for  the  moment  she  judges  the  right  one 
to  break  in  pieces  those  of  her  neighbours  who 
work  against  her.  All  Germans,  declares  Dr. 
Martin,  know  that  this  is  not  far  off. 

France  will  be  her  first  victim,  and  she  will 
not  wait  to  be  attacked.    She  is,  indeed,  pre- 
paring for  the  moment  when  the  allied  Powers 
attempt  to  dictate  to  her. 
,    Gerniany,  it  would  seem,  has  already  decided 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft        25 

to  annex  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Luxemburg,  and 
Belgium  incidentally  with,  of  course,  Antwerp, 
and  will  add  all  the  northern  provinces  of  France 
to  her  possessions,  so  as  to  seciu'e  Boulogne  and 
Calais. 

All  this  is  to  come  like  a  thunderbolt,  and 
Russia,  Spain,  and  the  rest  of  the  Powers  friendly 
to  England  will  not  dare  to  move  a  finger  to  aid 
her.  The  possession  of  the  coast  of  France  and 
Belgium  will  dispose  of  England's  supremacy  for 
ever. 

The  necessity  for  armament  is  put  in  other  than 
fictional  form  by  so  serious  a  writer  as  Dr.  Gaever- 
nitz,  Pro-Rector  of  the  University  of  Freiburg. 
Dr.  Schulze-Gaevemitz  is  not  unknown  in  Eng- 
land, nor  is  he  imbued  with  inimical  feelings  towards 
her.  But  he  takes  the  view  that  her  commercial 
prosperity  depends  upon  the  political  domina- 
tion of  Germany.  * 

After  having  described  in  an  impressive  way 
the  astonishing  growth  of  Germany's  trade  and 
commerce,  and  shown  how  dangerous  a  com- 
petitor Germany  has  become  for  England,  he 
returns  to  the  old  question,  and  asks  what  might 
happen  if  England,  unable  to  keep  down  the 
inconvenient  upstart  by  economic  means,  should, 
at  the  eleventh  hour,  try  to  knock  him  down. 
Quotations  from   the  National  Review,  the  06- 

'  See  letter  to  the  Matin,  August  22,  1908,  and  citations  from 
his  article  given  in  Part  III.  of  this  book. 


26 


The  Great  Illusion 


server,  the  Outlook,  the  Saturday  Review,  etc., 
facilitate  the  professor's  thesis  that  this  presump- 
tion is  more  than  a  mere  abstract  speculation. 
Granted  that  they  voice  only  the  sentiments  of  a 
small  minority,  they  are,  according  to  our  author, 
dangerous  for  Germany  in  this— that  they  point 
to  a  feasible  and  consequently  enticing  solution. 
The  old  peaceful  Free  Trade,  he  says,  shows  signs 
of  senility.  A  new  and  rising  Imperialism  is 
ever3nvhere  inclined  to  throw  means  of  poHtical 
warfare  into  the  balance  of  economic  rivalry. 
How  deeply  the  danger  is  felt  even  by  those 
who  can  in  no  sense  be  considered  Jingoes  may 
be  judged  by  the  following  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison.  I  make  no  apology  for  giving 
the  quotations  at  some  length.  In  a  letter  to 
the  Times  he  says: 

Whenever  otu-  Empire  and  maritime  ascendancy 
are  challenged  it  will  be  by  such  an  invasion  in  force 
as  was  once  designed  by  Philip  and  Parma,  and 
again  by  Napoleon.  It  is  this  certainty  which  compels 
me  to  modify  the  anti-militarist  policy  which  I  have 
consistently  maintained  for  forty  years  past.  .  .  . 
To  me  now  it  is  no  question  of  loss  of  prestige — no 
question  of  the  shrinkage  of  the  Empire;  it  is  our 
existence  as  a  foremost  European  Power,  and  even  as  a 
thriving  nation.  ...  If  ever  our  naval  defence  were 
broken  through,  our  Navy  overwhelmed  or  even  dis- 
persed for  a  season,  and  a  military  occupation  of  our 
arsenals,  docks,  and  capital  were  effected,  the  ruin 


Axioms  of  Modern  Statecraft        27 

wotild  be  such  as  modem  history  cannot  parallel. 
It   would  not  be    the   Empire,   but    Britain,   that 
would  be  destroyed.    .    .    .    The  occupation   by  a 
foreign  invader  of  our  arsenals,  docks,  cities,   and 
capital  would   be  to  the  Empire  what  the  bursting 
of  the  boilers  wotild  be  to  a  Dreadnought.      Capital 
would   disappear  with    the   destruction   of   credit. 
...  A  catastrophe  so  appalling  cannot  be  left  to 
chance,  even  if  the  probabilities  against  its  occurring 
were  50  to  i.    But  the  odds  are  not  50  to  i.    No 
high  authority  ventures  to  assert  that  a  successful 
invasion  of  our  country  is  absolutely  impossible  if  it 
were  assisted  by  extraordinary  conditions.     And  a 
successful  invasion  would  mean  to  us  the  total  collapse 
of  our  Empire,  our  trade,  and,  with  trade,  the  means 
of  feeding  forty  millions  in  these  islands.     If  it  is 
asked,  "Why  does  invasion  threaten  more  terrible 
consequences   to  us    than   it    does   to    our    neigh- 
bours?"  the  answer  is  that  the  British  Empire  is 
an  anomalous  structure,  without  any  real    parallel 
in  modem  history,  except  in  the  history  of  Portugal, 
Venice,  and  Holland,  and  in  ancient  history  Athens 
and  Carthage.     Our  Empire  presents  special  condi- 
tions both  for  attack  and  for  destruction.     And  its 
destruction  by  an  enemy  seated  on  the  Thames  would 
have  consequences  so  awful  to  contemplate  that  it 
cannot  be  left  to  be  safeguarded  by  one  sole  line  of 
defence,   however   good,  and   for   the   present   hour 
however  adequate.  .  .  .  For  more  than  forty  years 
I  have  raised  my  voice  against  every  form  of  aggres- 
sion, of  Imperial  expansion,  and  Continental  mili- 
tarism.    Few  men  have  more  earnestly   protested 
against  postponing  social  reforms  and  the  well-being 


28 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


of  the  people  to  Imperial  conquests  and  Asiatic  and 
African  adventures.  I  do  not  go  back  on  a  word 
that  I  have  uttered  thereon.  But  how  hollow  is  all 
talk  about  industrial  reorganization  until  we  have 
secured  our  country  against  a  catastrophe  that  would 
involve  untold  destitution  and  misery  on  the  people 
in  the  mass — which  would  paralyze  industry  and  raise 
food  to  famine  prices,  whilst  closing  our  factories  and 
otir  yards! 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GREAT  ILLUSION 

These  views  founded  on  a  gross  and  dangerous  misconception 
— What  a  German  victory  could  and  could  not  accomplish — 
What  an  English  victory  could  and  could  not  accomplish 
— ^The  optical  illusion  of  conquest — There  can  be  no  trans- 
fer of  wealth — ^The  prosperity  of  the  little  States  in  Europe 
— German  Three  per  Cents  at  82  and  Belgian  at  96 
— Russian  Three  and  a  half  per  Cents  at  81,  Norwegian  at 
102 — ^What  this  really  means — ^Why  security  of  little  States 
not  due  to  treaty — Military  conquest  financially  futile — If 
Germany  annexed  Holland,  would  any  German  benefit  or 
any  Hollander  ? 

I  THINK  it  will  be  admitted  that  there  is  not 
much  chance  of  misunderstanding  the  general 
idea  embodied  in  the  foregoing.  Mr.  Harrison 
is  especially  definite.  At  the  risk  of  "damnable 
reiteration"  I  would  again  recall  the  fact  that 
he  is  merely  expressing  one  of  the  universally 
accepted  axioms  of  Em*opean  politics — namely, 
that  a  nation's  financial  and  industrial  stability, 
its  sectuity  in  commercial  activity — in  short,  its 
prosperity  and  well-being,  depend  upon  its  being 
able  to  defend  itself  against  the  aggression  of 
other  nations,  who  will,  if  they  are  able,  be  tempted 

29 


30 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


to  commit  such  aggression  because  in  so  doing 
they  will  increase  their  power  and  consequently 
their  prosperity  and  well-being,  at  the  cost  of  the 
weaker  and  vanquished. 

I  have  quoted,  it  is  true,  largely  journalistic 
authorities  because  I  desired  to  indicate  real 
pubHc  opinion,  not  merely  scholarly  opinion. 
But  Mr.  Harrison  has  the  support  of  other  schol- 
ars of  all  sorts.  Thus  Mr.  Spenser  Wilkinson, 
Chichele  Professor  of  Military  History  at  Oxford, 
and  a  deservedly  respected  authority  on  the 
subject,  confirms  in  almost  every  point  in  his 
various  writings  the  opinions  that  I  have  quoted, 
and  gives  emphatic  confirmation  to  all  that  Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison  has  expressed.  In  his  book, 
Britain  at  Bay,  Professor  Wilkinson  says:  "No 
one  thought  when  in  1888  the  American  observer, 
Captain  Mahan,  published  his  volume  on  the 
influence  of  sea-power  upon  history,  that  other 
nations  besides  the  British  read  from  that  book 
the  lesson  that  victory  at  sea  carried  with  it  a 
prosperity  and  influence  and  a  greatness  obtain- 
able by  no  other  means. " 

Well,  it  is  the  object  of  these  pages  to  show  that 
this  all  but  universal  idea,  of  which  Mr.  Harrison's 
letter  is  a  particularly  vivid  expression,  is  a 
gross  and  desperately  dangerous  misconception, 
partaking  at  times  of  the  nattire  of  an  optical 
illusion,  at  times  of  the  nature  of  a  superstition, 
— a  misconception  not  only  gross  and  universal, 


The  Great  Illusion 


31 


but  so  profoundly  mischievous  as  to  misdirect  an 
immense  part  of  the  energies  of  mankind  and  to 
misdirect  them  to  such  degree  that  unless  we 
liberate  ourselves  from  this  superstition  civili- 
zation itself  will  be  threatened. 

And  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  feattires  of 
this  whole  question  is  that  the  absolute  demon- 
stration of  the  falsity  of  this  idea,  the  complete 
exposure  of  the  illusion  which  gives  it  birth,  is 
neither  abstruse  nor  difficult.  Such  demonstra- 
tion does  not  repose  upon  any  elaborately  con- 
structed theorem,  but  upon  the  simple  exposition 
of  the  political  facts  of  Europe  as  they  exist 
to-day.  These  facts,  which  are  incontrovert- 
ible, and  which  I  shall  elaborate  presently,  may 
be  simimed  up  in  a  few  simple  propositions, 
which  sufficiently  expose  the  illusion  with  which 
we  are  dealing.  These  propositions  may  be  stated 
thus: 

I.  An  extent  of  devastation,  even  approxi- 
mating to  that  which  Mr.  Harrison  foreshadows 
as  the  result  of  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain  by 
another  nation,  is  a  physical  impossibility.  No 
nation  can  in  our  day  by  military  conquest  per- 
manently or  for  any  considerable  period  destroy 
or  greatly  damage  the  trade  of  another,  since 
trade  depends  upon  the  existence  of  natural 
wealth  and  a  population  capable  of  working  it. 
So  long  as  the  natural  wealth  of  the  coimtry  and 


I 


32 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


the  population  to  work  it  remain,  an  invader  can- 
not ''utterly  destroy  it.*'  He  could  only  destroy 
the  trade  by  destroying  the  population,  which 
is  not  practicable,  and  if  he  could  destroy  the 
population  he  would  destroy  his  own  market, 
actual  or  potential,  which  would  be  commercially 
suicidal. 

2.  If  an  invasion  by  Germany  did  involve,  as 
Mr.  Harrison  and  those  who  think  with  him  say 
it  would,  the  "total  collapse  of  the  Empire,  our 
trade,  and  the  means  of  feeding  forty  millions 
in  these  islands  ...  the  disturbance  of  capital 
and  destruction  of  credit,"  German  capital 
wovild,  because  of  the  internationalization  and 
delicate  interdependence  of  our  credit-built  finance 
and  industry,  also  disappear  in  large  part,  and 
German  credit  also  collapse,  and  the  only  means 
of  restoring  it  would  be  for  Germany  to  put  an 
end  to  the  chaos  in  England  by  putting  an  end 
to  the  condition  which  had  produced  it.  More- 
over, because  also  of  this  delicate  interdepend- 
ence of  oiu-  credit-built  finance  the  confiscation 
by  an  invader  of  private  property,  whether 
stocks,  shares,  ships,  mines,  or  anything  more 
valuable  than  jewellery  or  furniture — anything, 
in  short,  which  is  bound  up  with  the  economic 
life  of  the  people — ^would  so  react  upon  the  finance 
of  the  invader's  country  as  to  make  the  damage 
to  the  invader  resulting  from  the  confiscation 
exceed  in  value  the  property  confiscated.    So  that 


The  Great  Illusion 


33 


Germany's  success  in  conquest  would  be  a  demon- 
stration of  the  complete  economic  futility  of 
conquest. 

3.  For  allied  reasons  in  our  day  the  exaction 
of  tribute  from  a  conquered  people  has  become 
an  economic  impossibility;  the  exaction  of  a  large 
indemnity  of  doubtful  benefit  to  the  nation  re- 
ceiving it,  even  when  it  can  be  exacted. 

4.  Damage  to  even  an  infinitely  less  degree 
than  that  foreshadowed  by  Mr.  Harrison  cotdd 
only  be  inflicted  by  an  invader  as  a  means  of 
punishment  costly  to  himself,  or  as  the  result  of 
an  imselfish  and  expensive  desire  to  inflict  misery 
for  the  mere  joy  of  inflicting  it.  In  this  self- 
seeking  world  it  is  not  practical  to  assimie  the 
existence  of  an  inverted  altruism  of  this  kind. 

5.  For  reasons  of  a  like  nature  to  the  fore- 
going it  is  a  physical  and  economic  impossibility 
to  capture  the  external  or  carrying  trade  of 
another  nation  by  military  conquest.  Large 
navies  are  impotent  to  create  trade  for  the 
nations  owning  them,  and  can  do  nothing  to 
''confine  the  commercial  rivalry"  of  other  nations. 
Nor  can  a  conqueror  destroy  the  competition  of  a 
conquered  nation  by  annexation;  his  competitors 
would  still  compete  with  him — i.  e.,  if  Germany 
conquered  Holland,  German  merchants  wotild 
still  have  to  meet  the  competition  of  Dutch  mer- 
chants, and  on  keener  terms  than  originally, 
because  the  Dutch  merchants   would   then  be 


34 


The  Great  Illusion 


within  the  German*s  customs  lines.  Moreover, 
Germans  would  not  be  able  to  take  a  pennypiece 
from  the  citizens  of  Holland  to  reimburse  the  cost 
of  conquest,  as  any  special  taxation  would  simply 
be  taxing  Germans,  since  Holland  would  then 
be  a  part  of  Germany ;  the  notion  that  the  trade 
competition  of  rivals  can  be  disposed  of  by  con- 
quering those  rivals  being  one  of  the  illustrations 
of  the  curious  optical  illusion  which  lies  behind 
the  misconception  dominating  this  subject. 

6.  The  wealth,  prosperity,  and  well-being  of 
a  nation  depend  in  no  way  upon  its  political 
power.  Otherwise  we  should  find  the  com- 
mercial prosperity  and  social  well-being  of  the 
smaller  nations  which  exercise  no  political  power, 
manifestly  below  that  of  the  great  nations  which 
control  Europe,  whereas  this  is  not  the  case. 
The  populations  of  States  like  Switzerland, 
Holland,  Belgitim,  Denmark,  Sweden  are  in 
every  way  as  prosperous  as  the  citizens  of  States 
like  Germany,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prance. 
The  trade  per  capita  of  the  small  nations  is  in 
excess  of  the  trade  per  capita  of  the  great. 

7.  No  nation  could  gain  any  advantage  by 
the  conquest  of  the  British  Colonies,  and  Great 
Britain  could  not  suffer  material  damage  by 
their  loss,  however  much  such  loss  would  be 
regretted  on  sentimental  grounds,  and  as  render- 
ing less  easy  certain  useful  social  co-operation 
between  kindred  peoples.    The  use,  indeed,  of  the 


The  Great  Illusion 


35 


word  "loss"  is  misleading.  Great  Britain  does 
not  "own"  her  Colonies.  They  are,  in  fact, 
independent  nations  in  alliance  with  the  Mother 
Country,  to  whom  they  are  no  source  of  tribute 
or  economic  profit,  their  economic  relations  being 
settled,  not  by  the  Mother  Country,  but  by  the 
Colonies.  Economically,  England  would  gain 
by  their  formal  separation,  since  she  would  be 
relieved  of  the  cost  of  their  defence.  Their 
loss,  involving,  therefore,  no  change  in  econom- 
ic fact  (beyond  saving  the  Mother  Country 
the  cost  of  their  defence),  could  not  involve  the 
ruin  of  the  Empire  and  the  starvation  of  the 
Mother  Country,  as  those  who  commonly  treat 
of  such  a  contingency  are  apt  to  aver.  As  Eng- 
land is  not  able  to  exact  tribute  or  economic 
advantage,  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  other 
country  necessarily  less  experienced  in  Colonial 
management  would  be  able  to  succeed  where 
England  had  failed,  especially  in  view  of  the  past 
history  of  the  Spanish,  Portuguese,  French,  and 
British  Colonial  Empires.  This  history  also  de- 
monstrates that  the  position  of  Crown  Colonies 
in  the  respect  which  we  are  considering  is  not 
sensibly  different  from  that  of  the  self-govern- 
ing ones.  It  is  not  to  be  presumed,  there- 
fore, that  any  European  nation  would  attempt 
the  desperately  expensive  business  of  the 
conquest  of  England  for  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing   an    experiment    with    her    Colonies    which 


36 


The  Great  Illusion 


I'' 


all  Colonial  history  shows  to  be  doomed  to 
failure. 

The  foregoing  propositions  traverse  sufficiently 
the  ground  covered  in  the  series  of  those  typical 
statements  of  policy,  both  English  and  German, 
from  which  I  have  quoted.  The  simple  state- 
ment of  these  propositions,  based  as  they  are 
upon  the  self-evident  facts  of  present-day  Etu-o- 
pean  politics,  sufficiently  exposes  the  nature 
of  those  political  axioms  which  I  have  quoted. 
But  as  men  even  of  the  calibre  of  Mr.  Harrison 
normally  disregard  these  self-evident  facts,  it  is 
necessary  to  elaborate  them  at  somewhat  greater 
length. 

For  the  p\upose  of  presenting  a  due  parallel 
to  the  statement  of  policy  embodied  in  the 
quotations  made  from  the  Times  and  Mr.  Harrison 
and  others,  I  have  divided  the  propositions  which 
I  desire  to  demonstrate  into  seven  clauses,  but 
such  division  is  quite  arbitrary,  and  made  only 
in  order  to  bring  about  the  parallel  in  question. 
The  whole  seven  can  be  put  into  one,  as  follows: 
That  as  the  only  possible  policy  in  our  day  for 
a  conqueror  to  pursue  is  to  leave  the  wealth  of  a 
territory  in  the  complete  possession  of  the  in* 
dividuals  inhabiting  that  territory,  it  is  a  logical 
fallacy  and  an  optical  illusion  in  Europe  to  regard 
a  nation  as  increasing  its  wealth  when  it  increases 
its  territory,  because  when  a  province  or  state 
is  annexed,  the  population,  who  are  the  real  and 


The  Great  Illusion 


37 


only  owners  of  the  wealth  therein,  are  also  an- 
nexed, and  the  conqueror  gets  nothing.  The 
facts  of  modem  history  abtmdantly  demonstrate 
this.  When  Germany  annexed  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  and  Alsace  not  a  single  ordinary  German 
citizen  was  one  pfennig  the  richer.  Although 
England  '*owns"  Canada,  the  English  merchant 
is  driven  out  of  the  Canadian  markets  by  the 
merchant  of  Switzerland  who  does  not  **own" 
Canada.  Even  where  territory  is  not  formally 
annexed,  the  conqueror  is  unable  to  take  the 
wealth  of  a  conquered  territory  owing  to  the 
delicate  interdependence  of  the  financial  world 
(an  outcome  of  our  credit  and  banking  systems), 
which  makes  the  financial  and  industrial  security 
of  the  victor  dependent  upon  financial  and  in- 
dustrial security  in  all  considerable  civilized 
centres.  So  that  widespread  confiscation  or 
destruction  of  trade  and  commerce  in  conquered 
territory  wotdd  react  disastrously  upon  the  con- 
queror. The  conqueror  is  thus  reduced  to  econ- 
omic impotence  which  means  that  political  and 
military  power  is  economically  futile — that  is  to 
say,  can  do  nothing  for  the  trade  and  well-being 
of  the  individuals  exercising  such  power.  Con- 
versely, armies  and  navies  cannot  destroy  the 
trade  of  rivals,  nor  can  they  capture  it.  The 
great  nations  of  Europe  do  not  destroy  the  trade 
of  the  small  nations  to  their  benefit,  because  they 
cannot;  and  the  Dutch  citizen,  whose  govern- 


38 


The  Great  Illusion 


ment  possesses  no  military  power,  is  just  as  well 
off  as  the  German  citizen,  whose  government 
possesses  an  army  of  two  million  men,  and  a 
great  deal  better  off  than  the  Russian,  whose 
government  possesses  an  army  of  something  like 
four  million.  Thus  the  Three  per  Cents  of  power- 
less Belgium  are  quoted  at  96,  and  the  Three  per 
Cents  of  powerful  Germany  at  82;  the  Three 
and  a  half  per  Cents  of  the  Russian  Empire, 
with  its  htmdred  and  twenty  million  souls  and 
its  four  million  army,  are  quoted  at  81,  while 
the  Three  and  a  half  per  Cents  of  Norway, 
which  has  not  an  army  at  all  (or  any  that 
need  be  considered  in  the  discussion),  are 
quoted  at  102.  All  of  which  carries  with  it 
the  paradox  that  the  more  a  nation's  wealth  is 
protected  the  less  secure  does  it  become.^ 

It  is  this  last  fact,  constituting  as  it  does  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  economic-sociological 
phenomena  in  Europe,  which  might  be  made  the 
text  of  this  book.  Here  we  are  told  by  all  the 
experts  that  great  navies  and  great  armies  are 
necessary    to    protect   our   wealth    against    the 

*  This  is  not  the  only  basis  of  comparison,  of  course.  Every- 
one who  knows  Europe  at  all  is  aware  of  the  high  standard  of 
comfort  in  all  the  small  countries:  Scandinavia,  Holland, 
Belgium,  Switzerland.  Dr.  Bertillon,  the  French  statistician, 
has  made  an  elaborate  calculation  of  the  relative  wealth  of  the 
individuals  of  each  country.  The  middle-aged  German  posBesses 
(on  the  established  average)  nine  thousand  francs;  the  Hollander, 
sixteen  thousand!  (see  Journal^Pans,  Aug.  i,  1910). 


The  Great  Illusion 


39 


aggression   of   powerful   neighbours,    whose   cu- 
pidity and  voracity  can  be  controlled  by  force 
alone;  that  treaties  avail  nothing,  and  that  in 
international  politics  might  makes  right.     Yet 
when  the  financial  genius  of  Europe,  studying 
the  question  in  its  purely  financial  and  material 
aspect,  has  to  decide  between  the  great  States 
with  all  their  imposing  paraphernalia  of  colossal 
armies   and   fabulously   costjy   navies,    and   the 
Httle  States  (which,  if  otir  political  pimdits  are 
right,  could  any  day  have  their  wealth  gobbled 
up  by  those  voracious  big  neighbours)  possessing 
relatively    no    military    power    whatever,    such 
genius  pltmips  solidly,  and  with  what  is  in  the 
circumstances  a  tremendous  difference,  in  favour 
of  the  small  and  helpless.     For  a  difference  of 
twenty  points,  which  we  find  as  between  Nor- 
wegian and  Russian,  and  fourteen  as  between 
Belgian  and  German  securities  is  the  difference 
between  a  safe  and  a  speculative  one;  the  differ- 
ence between  an  American  railroad  bond  in  time 
of  profound  security  and  in  time  of  widespread 
panic.    And  what  is  true  of  the  Government  funds 
is  true  in  an  only  slightly  less  degree  of  the  indus- 
trial securities,  in  the  national  comparison  just 
drawn. 

Is  it  a  sort  of  altruism  or  quixoticism  which 
thus  impels  the  capitalists  of  Europe  to  con- 
clude that  the  public  funds  and  investments  of 
powerless  Holland  and  Sweden  (any  day  at  the 


it 


40 


The  Great  Illusion 


mercy  of  their  big  neighbours)  are  lo  to  20  per 
cent,  safer  than  the  greatest  Power  of  Continental 
Europe?  The  question  is,  of  course,  absurd. 
The  only  consideration  of  the  financier  is  profit 
and  security,  and  he  has  decided  that  the  funds 
of  the  undefended  nation  are  more  secure  than 
the  fimds  of  one  defended  by  colossal  arma- 
ments. How  does  he  arrive  at  this  decision, 
unless  it  be  through  the  knowledge  that  modem 
wealth  requires  no  defence,  because  it  cannot  be 
confiscated? 

Nor  can  it  be  replied  that  I  am  confusing  two 
things,  political  and  military,  as  against  com- 
mercial security.  My  whole  point  is  that  Mr. 
Harrison,  and  those  who  think  with  him  (that 
is  to  say,  the  statesmen  of  Europe  generally) 
are  for  ever  telling  us  that  military  security  and 
commercial  security  are  identical,  and  that 
armaments  are  justified  by  the  necessity  for 
commercial  security;  that  the  Navy  is  an  "in- 
surance," and  all  the  other  catch  phrases  which 
are  the  commonplace  of  this  discussion. 

If  Mr.  Harrison  were  right;  if,  as  he  implies, 
England's  commerce,  her  very  industrial  exist- 
ence, wotild  disappear  did  she  allow  neighbours  who 
envied  her  that  commerce  to  become  her  superiors 
in  armament,  how  does  he  explain  the  fact  that  the 
great  Powers  of  the  Continent  are  flanked  by  little 
nations  infinitely  weaker  than  themselves  having 
always  a  per  capita  trade  equal,  and  in  most  cases 


The  Great  Illusion 


41 


greater  than  themselves  ?    If  the  common  doctrines 
be  true  the  Rothschilds,  Barings,  Morgans,  and 
Stems  would  not  invest  a  poimd  or  a  dollar  in  the 
territories  of  the  undefended  nations,  and  yet,  far 
from  that  being  the  case,  they  consider  that  a 
Swiss  or  a  Dutch  investment  is  more  secure  than 
a  German  one;  that  industrial  undertakings  in  a 
coimtry  like  Switzerland,  defended  by  a  comic 
opera  army  of  a  few  thousand  men,  are  preferable 
in  point  of  security  to  enterprises  backed  by 
three   millions   of    the   most   perfectly    trained 
soldiers  in  the  world.    The  attitude  of  European 
finance  in  this  matter  is  the  absolute  condemna- 
tion of  the  view  commonly  taken  by  the  states- 
man.    If  a  country's  trade  were  really  at  the 
mercy  of  the  first  successful  invader;  if  armies 
and  navies  were  really  necessary  for  the  protec- 
tion of  trade,  the  small  countries  would  be  in 
a   hopelessly   inferior  position,  and  could  only 
exist  on  the  sufferance  of  what  we  are  told  are 
unscrupidous  aggressors.    And  yet  Norway  has 
relatively  to  population  a  greater  carrying  trade 
than   Great   Britain,^   and    Dutch,    Swiss,    and 
Belgian  merchants  compete  in  all  the  markets 
of  the  world  successfully  with  those  of  Germany 
and  France. 
It  may  be  argued  that  the  small  States  owe 

'  The  figures  given  in  the  Statesman's  Year-Book  show  that 
proportionately  to  population  Norway  has  nearly  three  times 
the  carrying  trade  of  England. 


* 


42 


The  Great  Illusion 


their  security  to  the  various  treaties  guaranteeing 
their  neutrality.  But  such  a  conclusion  of  itself 
would  condemn  the  supporters  of  the  great  arma- 
ments, because  it  would  imply  that  international 
good  faith  constituted  a  better  defence  than 
armaments.  If  this  were  really  the  case,  arma- 
ments would  indeed  be  condemned.  One  de- 
fender of  the  notion  of  security  by  treaty  puts 
the  case  thus: 

It  would  be  a  strange  result  of  our  modern  inter- 
national rivalry  if  those  smaller  members  of  the 
European  family  came  to  occupy  a  more  favourable 
position  than  have  their  neighbours.  But  things 
seem  working  in  that  direction,  for  it  is  a  fact  that, 
with  no  defence  worth  speaking  of,  these  countries 
are  more  secure  against  invasion,  less  fearful  of  it, 
less  preoccupied  by  it  than  England,  or  Germany,  or 
France,  each  with  its  gigantic  army  or  navy.  Why 
is  this?  Only  because  the  moral  force  of  a  treaty 
affords  a  stronger  bulwark  than  any  amount  of 
material  strength. 

Then,  if  these  smaller  countries  can  enjoy  this 
sense  of  safety  from  a  merely  moral  guarantee,  why 
should  not  the  larger  ones  as  well?  It  seems  absurd 
that  they  should  not.  If  that  recent  agreement 
between  England,  Germany,  France,  Denmark,  and 
Holland  can  so  effectively  relieve  Denmark  and 
Holland  from  the  fear  of  invasion  that  Denmark  can 
seriously  consider  the  actual  abolition  of  her  army 
and  navy,  it  seems  only  one  further  step  to  go  for  all 
the  Powers  collectively,  great  and  small,  to  guarantee 


The  Great  Illusion 


43 


the  territorial  independence  of  each  one  of  them 
severally.  The  North  Sea  Treaty  of  1907  supplies 
even  the  very  words  that  would  establish  such  an 
agreement. 

You  may  say  this  is  Utopian,  but  it  is  at  least 
not  more  than  the  futile  attempt  of  the  last  hundred 
years  to  try  and  base  territorial  independence 
solely  or  mainly  on  material  resources.  You  will 
hardly  deny  that  the  fear  in  England  of  actual  invasion 
has  not  merely  kept  pace  with,  but  has  outstripped, 
the  increase  of  our  expenditure  on  our  Navy.  Nor 
is  the  case  different  with  any  other  country.  The 
more  armaments  have  been  piled  upon  armaments 
the  greater  has  grown  the  sense  of  insecurity.  May 
I  not  fairly  argue  from  this  that  we  have  all  gone 
the  wrong  way  to  work,  and  that  the  more  we  reduce 
our  armaments  and  rely  upon  simple  treaties  the  safer 
we  shall  all  feel  and  the  less  we  shall  be  afraid  of 
aggression? 

But  I  fear  that  if  we  had  to  depend  upon  the 
sanctity  of  treaty  rights  and  international  good 
faith,  we  should  indeed  be  leaning  on  a  broken 
reed.' 


»  "The  principle  practically  acted  on  by  statesmen,  though, 
of  course,  not  openly  admitted,  is  that  frankly  enunciated  by 
Machiavelli:  'A  prudent  ruler  ought  not  to  keep  faith  when  by 
so  doing  it  would  be  against  his  interests,  and  when  the  reasons 
which  made  him  bind  himself  no  longer  exist. '  Prince  Bismarck 
said  practically  the  same  thing,  only  not  quite  so  nakedly. 
The  European  waste-paper  basket  is  the  place  to  which  all 
treaties  eventually  find  their  way,  and  a  thing  which  can  aiiy 
day  be  placed  in  a  waste-paper  basket  is  a  poor  thing  on  which 


w 


44 


The  Great  Illusion 


It  is  but  the  other  day  that  Austria,  by  the 
hand  of  ^'his  most  Catholic  Majesty" — a,  sov- 
ereign regarded  as  one  of  the  most  high-minded 
in  Europe — cynically  laid  aside  solemn  and  sacred 
engagements,  entered  into  with  the  other  Euro- 
pean Powers,  and,  without  so  much  as  a  "by-your- 
leave,"  made  waste  paper  of  them,  and  took 
advantage  of  the  struggle  for  civilization  in  which 
the  new  Turkish  Government  was  engaged  to  an- 
nex Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  which  he  had  given 
a  solemn  undertaking  not  to  do,  and  I  fear  that 
''his  most  Catholic  Majesty"  does  not  even  lose 
caste  thereby.  For,  though  but  a  few  months 
separate  us  from  this  double  breach  of  contract 
(the  commercial  equivalent  of  which  would  have 
disgraced  an  ordinary  tradesman),  Europe  seems 
to  have  forgotten  the  whole  thing. 

The  sanctity  of  treaty  rights  is  a  very  frail 
protection  to  the  small  State.  On  what,  there- 
fore, does  its  evident  security  rest?  Once  again, 
on  the  simple  fact  that  its  conquest  would  assure 
to  the  conqueror  no  profit,^ 


to  hang  our  national  safety.  Yet  there  are  plenty  of  people 
in  this  country  who  quote  treaties  to  us  as  if  we  could  depend 
on  their  never  being  torn  up.  Very  plausible  and  very  dan- 
gerous people  they  are — idealists  too  good  and  innocent  for  a 
hard,  cruel  world,  where  force  is  the  chief  law.  Yet  there  are, 
some  such  innocent  people  in  Parliament  even  at  present.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  we  shall  see  none  of  them  there  in  future  " 
(Major  Stewart  Murray,  Future  Peace  of  the  Anglo-Saxons), 
'  On  the  occasion  of  the  first  anniversary  of  the  annexation 


The  Great  Illusion 


45 


Let  us  put  this  matter  as  concretely  and  as 
practically,  with  our  feet  as  close  to  the  earth 
as  possible,  and  take  an  actual  example.    There 
is  possibly  no  party  in  Europe  so  convinced  of 
the  general  truth  of  the  common  axioms  that  at 
present    dominate  international  politics  as    the 
Pan-germanists    of   Germany.    This   party   has 
set  before  itself  the  object  of  grouping  into  one 
great  power  all  the  peoples  of  the  Germanic 
race   or   language   in   Europe.    Were   this   aim 
achieved,  Germany  would  become  the  dominating 
Power  of  the  Continent,  and  might  become  the 
dominating  Power  of  the  world.    And  according 
to  the  commonly  accepted  view  such  an  achieve- 
ment would,  from  the  point  of  view  of  Germany, 
be  worth  any  sacrifice  that  Germans  could  make. 
It  would  be  an  object  so  great,  so  desirable,  that 
German  citizens  should  not  hesitate  for  an  instant 
to  give  everything,  life  itself,  in  its  accomplish- 
ment.   Very  good.     Let  us  assume  that  at  the 
cost  of  great  sacrifice,  the  greatest  sacrifice  which 
it  is  possible  to  imagine  a  modem  civilized  nation 
making,  this  has  been  accomplished;  and  that 
Belgiimi  and  Holland  and  Germany,  Switzerland, 
and  Austria,  have  all  become  part  of  the  great 

the  Austrian  Press  dealt  with  the  disillusion  the  Act  involved. 
One  paper  says:  "The  annexation  has  cost  us  millions,  was  a 
great  disturbance  to  our  trade,  and  it  is  impossible  to  point  to 
one  single  benefit  that  has  resulted."  There  was  not  even  a 
pretence  of  economic  interest  in  the  annexation  which  was 
prompted  by  pure  political  vanity. 


46 


The  Great  Illusion 


Gmnan  hegemony :  is  there  one  ordinary  German 
citizen  who  would  he  able  to  say  that  his  well-being  had 
increased  by  such  a  change?  Germany  would  then 
"own  "  Holland.  But  would  a  single  German  citizen 
be  the  richer  for  the  ownership?  The  Hollander, 
from  having  been  the  citizen  of  a  small  and  insig- 
nificant State,  would  become  the  citizen  of  a  very 
great  one.  Would  the  individual  Hollander  be  any 
the  richer  or  any  the  better?  We  know  that ,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  neither  the  German  nor  the  Hollander 
would  be  one  whit  the  better,  and  we  know  also,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  that  in  all  human  probability  they 
would  be  a  great  deal  worse.  We  may,  indeed,  say 
that  the  Hollander  would  be  certainly  the  worse  in 
that  he  would  have  exchanged  the  relatively  light 
taxation  and  light  military  service  of  Holland  for 
the  much  heavier  taxation  and  the  much  longer 
military  service  of  the  ''great"  German  Empire. 

The  following  correspondence,  provoked  by  the 
first  edition  of  this  book,  throws  some  further 
light  on  the  points  elaborated  in  this  chapter. 
Mr.  Douglas  Owen,  writing  to  the  Economist, 
May  28,  1910,  says: 


Whatever  brings  rich  lands,  new  ports,  or  wealthy 
industrial  areas  to  a  State  enriches  its  treasury,  and 
therefore  the  nation  at  large,  and  therefore  the  in- 
dividual. 


The  Great  Illusion 

To  which  another  correspondent  replied : 


47 


Mr.  Owen  here  outlines  with  admirable  brevity  the 
very  optical  illusion  from  which  the  book  takes  its  title. 
In  every  civilized  State  revenues  which  are  drawn  from 
*'  rich  lands,  new  ports,"  etc.,  are  expended  on  the 
administration  of  these  rich  lands,  and  new  ports,  and 
the  citizens  of  the  enlarged  administrative  area  are 
exactly  where  they  were  before;  and  the  notion  that 
in  some  mysterious  way  wealth  may  first  be  drawn 
from  a  territory  into  the  treastiry,  and  then  be  redis- 
tributed with  a  profit  to  the  individuals  who  have 
contributed  it  or  to  others,  is  merely  a  vulgar  error 
due  to  inattention  as  to  the  real  methods  of  modern 
political  administration.  It  would  be  just  as  reason- 
able to  say  that  the  citizens  of  London  are  richer  than 
the  citizens  of  Birmingham  because  London  has  a 
richer  treasury,  or  that  Londoners  would  become  richer 
if  the  London  County  Council  were  to  "annex"  the 
county  of  Hertfordshire;  or  to  say  that  people's  wealth 
varies  according  to  the  size  of  the  administrative  areas 
which  they  inhabit.  The  whole  thing  is,  of  course, 
what  Mr.  Angell  calls  it,  an  optical  illusion.  Just  as 
poverty  may  be  greater  in  the  great  city  than  in  the 
small  one  and  taxation  heavier,  so  the  citizens  of  a 
great  State  may  be  poorer  than  the  citizens  of  a  small 
one — as  they  very  often  are.  Modem  government 
is  mainly,  and  tends  to  become  entirely,  a  matter 
simply  of  administration,  and  mere  jugglery  with  the 
administrative  entities,  the  absorption  of  small  States 
into  large  ones,  or  the  breaking  up  of  large  States  into 
small  ones  is  not  of  itself  going  to  affect  the  matter 
one  way  or  another. 


is 


*, 


48 


The  Great  Illusion 


1. 


The  letter  of  another  critic  provoked  the  fol- 
lowing reply: 

While  it  is  true,  of  course,  that  if  Germany  annexed 
Holland  the  German  Government  revenue  would  be 
increased  by  the  amount  of  the  Dutch  taxes,  German 
expenditure  would  be  charged  with  the  cost  of  Dutch 
administration,  and  any  taxes  collected  in  Holland 
would  simply  be  absorbed  by  the  increased  expendi- 
ture incurred  in  the  administration  and  defence  of 
Holland,  so  that  the  German  Government  and 
German  people  would  be  exactly  where  they  were 
before.  If  an  attempt  were  made  to  exact  from  the 
newly  acquired  province  some  special  tribute  to  be 
distributed  in  some  way  among  the  other  States  of  the 
Empire,  Dutch  discontent  would  be  so  great  that  the 
cost  of  administration,  policing,  repression,  defence, 
etc.,  would  be  so  increased  as  certainly  to  offset  the 
advantages  of  such  tribute.  But  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  Germany  would  even  attempt  this.  She 
has  not  done  so  in  the  case  of  Schleswig-Holstein  or 
Alsace  Lorraine — i.e.,  she  has  never  taken  from  those 
provinces  a  tribute  which  she  has  attempted  to 
distribute  among  the  other  States  of  the  Empire,  so 
that  the  individual  German  is  not  one  pfennig  richer 
because  those  States  have  been  incorporated  in  the 
Empire. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  CONFISCATION 

Our  present  vocabulary  of  international  politics  an  historical 
survival— Why  modem  conditions  diflfer  from  ancient— 
The  profound  change  effected  by  credit— The  delicate 
interdependence  of  international  finance— Attila  and  the 
Kaiser— What  would  happen  if  a  German  invader  looted 
the  Bank  of  England— German  trade  dependent  upon 
English  credit— Confiscation  of  an  enemy's  property  an 
economic  impossibility  under  modem  conditions. 

r^URING   the  Jubilee  procession   an  English 
^^     beggar  was  heard  to  say: 

I  own  AustraHa,  Canada,  New  Zealand,  India, 
Burmah,  and  the  Islands  of  the  Far  Pacific;  and  I 
am  starving  for  want  of  a  crust  of  bread.  I  am  a 
citizen  of  the  greatest  Power  of  the  modem  world, 
and  all  people  should  bow  to  my  greatness.  And 
yesterday  I  cringed  for  alms  to  a  negro  savage,  who 
repulsed  me  with  disgust. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this? 

The  meaning  is  that,  as  most  frequently 
happens  in  the  history  of  ideas,  our  vocabulary 
is  a  survival  of  conditions  no  longer  existing, 
4  49 


50 


The  Great  Illusion 


and  our  mental  conceptions  follow  at  the  tail 
of  our  vocabulary.  International  politics  are  still 
dominated  by  terms  applicable  to  conditions 
which  the  processes  of  modem  life  have  alto- 
gether abolished. 

In  the  Roman  times — indeed,  in  all  the  ancient 
world — it  was  true  that  the  conquest  of  a  terri- 
tory meant  a  tangible  advantage  to  the  con- 
queror; it  meant  the  exploitation  of  the  conquered 
territory  by  the  conquering  State  itself  to  the 
advantage  of  that  State  and  its  citizens.  It  not 
infrequently  meant  the  enslavement  of  the  con- 
quered people  and  the  acquisition  of  wealth  in 
the  form  of  slaves  as  a  direct  result  of  the  con- 
quering war.  In  mediaeval  times  a  war  of  con- 
quest meant  at  least  immediate  tangible  booty 
in  the  shape  of  movable  property,  actual  gold  and 
silver,  land  parcelled  out  among  the  chiefs  of  the 
conquering  nation,  as  took  place  at  the  Norman 
Conquest,  and  so  forth. 

At  a  later  period  conquest  at  least  involved 
an  advantage  to  the  reigning  house  of  the  con- 
quering nation,  and  it  was  mainly  the  squabbles 
of  rival  sovereigns  for  prestige  and  power  which 
precipitated  the  wars  of  such  period. 

At  a  still  later  period  civilization,  as  a  whole — 
not  necessarily  the  conquering  nation — gained 
(sometimes)  by  the  conquest  of  savage  peoples, 
in  that  order  was  substituted  for  disorder.  In  the 
period   of  the  colonization  of  newly-discovered 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    51 

land  the  pre-emption  of  such  territory  by  one 
particular  nation  secured  an  advantage  for  the 
citizens  of  that  nation  in  that  its  overflowing 
population  found  homes  in  conditions  that  were 
preferable  to  the  social  or  political  conditions 
imposed  by  alien  nations.  Bui  none  of  these  con- 
ditwns  is  part  of  the  problem  that  we  are  considering. 
We  are  concerned  with  the  case  of  fully  civilized 
rival  nations  in  fully  occupied  territory,  and  the 
fact  of  conquering  such  territory  gives  to  the 
conqueror  no  material  advantage  which  he  coidd 
not  have  had  without  conquest.  And  in  these 
conditions — the  realities  of  the  political  world 
as  we  find  it  to-day— ''domination,"  or  "pre- 
dominance of  armament,"  or  the  "command 
of  the  sea, "  can  do  nothing  for  commerce  and 
industry  or  general  well-being;  we  may  build 
fifty  Dreadnoughts  and  not  sell  so  much  as  a 
penknife  the  more  in  consequence.  We  might 
conquer  Germany  to-morrow,  and  we  should 
find  that  we  could  not,  because  of  that  fact, 
make  a  single  Englishman  a  shilling's  worth  the 
richer  in  consequence,  the  war  indemnity  notwith- 
standing. 

How  have  conditions  so  changed  that  terms 
which  were  applicable  to  the  ancient  world — ^in 
one  sense  at  least  to  the  mediaeval  world,  and, 
in  another  sense  still  to  the  world  of  that  political 
renaissance  which  gave  to  Great  Britain  its 
Empire — are  no  longer  applicable  in  any  sense 


I 


52 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  the  conditions  of  the  world  as  we  find  them 
to-day?  How  has  it  become  impossible  for  one 
nation  to  take  by  conquest  the  wealth  of  another 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  conqueror? 
How  is  it  that  we  are  confronted  by  the  absurdity 
(which  the  facts  of  our  own  Empire  go  to  prove) 
of  the  conquering  people  being  able  to  exact 
from  conquered  territory  rather  less  than  more 
advantage  than  it  was  able  to  do  before  the  con- 
quest took  place  ? 

The  cause  of  this  profound  change,  largely  the 
work  of  the  last  thirty  years,  is  due  mainly  to  the 
<iomplex  financial  interdependence  of  the  capitals 
of  the  world,  a  condition  in  which  disturbance 
in  New  York  involves  financial  and  commercial 
disturbance  in  London,  and,  if  sufficiently  grave, 
compels  financiers  of  London  to  co-operate  with 
those  of  New  York  to  put  an  end  to  the  crisis, 
not  as  a  matter  of  altruism,  but  as  a  matter  of 
commercial  self -protection.  The  complexity  of 
modem  finance  makes  New  York  dependent  on 
London,  London  upon  Paris,  Paris  upon  Berlin, 
to  a  greater  degree  than  has  ever  yet  been  the 
case  in  history.  This  interdependence  is  the 
result  of  the  daily  use  of  those  contrivances  of 
civilization  which  date  from  yesterday — the  rapid 
post,  the  instantaneous  dissemination  of  financial 
and  commercial  information  by  means  of  teleg- 
raphy, and  generally  the  incredible  progress  of 
rapidity  in  communication  which  has  put  the 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    53 

half-dozen  chief  capitals  of  Christendom  in  closer 
contact  financially,  and  has  rendered  them  more 
dependent  the  one  upon  the  other  than  were  the 
chief  cities  of  Great  Britain  less  than  a  himdred 
years  ago. 

A  well-known  French  authority,  writing  re- 
cently in  a  financial  publication,  makes  this 
reflection: 

The  very  rapid  development  of  industry  has  given 
rise  to  the  active  intervention  therein  of  finance, 
which  has  become  its  nervus  rerum,  and  has  come  to 
play  a  dominating  rdle.  Under  the  influence  of  finance, 
industry  is  beginning  to  lose  its  exclusively  national 
character  to  take  on  a  character  more  and  more  inter- 
national. The  animosity  of  rival  nationalities  seems 
to  be  in  process  of  attenuation  as  the  result  of  this 
increasing  international  solidarity.  This  solidarity 
was  manifested  in  a  striking  fashion  in  the  last  in- 
dustrial and  monetary  crisis.  This  crisis,  which 
appeared  in  its  most  serious  form  in  the  United 
States  and  Germany,  far  from  being  any  profit  to 
rival  nations,  has  been  injurious  to  them.  The  nations 
competing  with  America  and  Germany,  such  as  Eng- 
land and  France,  have  suffered  only  less  than  the 
countries  directly  affected.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that,  quite  apart  from  the  financial  interests  involved 
directly  or  indirectly  in  the  industry  of  other  coimtries, 
every  producing  country  is  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
as  well  as  being  a  competitor  and  a  rival,  a  client 
and  a  market.  Financial  and  commercial  solidarity 
is  increasing  every  day  at  the  expense  of  commercial 


54 


The  Great  Illusion 


and  industrial  competition.  This  was  certainly  one 
of  the  principal  causes  which  a  year  or  two  ago  pre- 
vented the  outbreak  of  war  between  Germany  and 
France  d  propos  of  Morocco,  and  which  led  to  the 
understanding  of  Algeciras.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
for  those  who  have  studied  the  question  that  the 
influence  of  this  international  economic  solidarity  is 
increasing  despite  ourselves.  It  has  not  resulted  from 
the  conscious  action  on  the  part  of  any  of  us,  and 
it  certainly  cannot  be  arrested  by  any  conscious  action 
on  our  part. » 

A  fiery  patriot  sent  to  a  London  paper  the 
following  letter : 

When  the  German  Army  is  looting  the  cellars  of 
the  Bank  of  England,  and  carrying  off  the  foundations 
of  our  whole  national  fortune,  perhaps  the  twaddlers 
who  are  now  screaming  about  the  wastefulness  of 
building  four  more  Dreadnoughts  will  understand 
why  sane  men  are  regarding  this  opposition  as  treason- 
able nonsense. 

What  would  be  the  result  of  such  an  action 
on  the  part  of  a  German  Army  in  London? 
The  first  effect,  of  course,  would  be  that,  as  the 
Bank  of  England  is  the  banker  of  all  other  banks, 
there  would  be  a  run  on  every  bank  in  England, 
and  all  would  suspend  payment.  But,  simul- 
taneously, German  bankers,  many  with  credit 
in  London,  would  feel  the  effect;  merchants  the 

^  U Information,  August  22,  1909. 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    55 

world  over  threatened  with  ruin  by  the  effect  of  the 
collapse  in  London  would  immediately  call  in  all 
their  credits  in  Germany,  and  German  finance 
would  present  a  condition  of  chaos  hardly  less 
terrible  than  that  in  England.  The  German  Gen- 
eralissimo in  London  might  be  no  more  civilized 
than  Attila  himself,  but  he  would  soon  find  the 
difference  between  himself  and  Attila.  Attila, 
luckily  for  him,  did  not  have  to  worry  about  a 
bank  rate  and  such  like  complications;  but  the 
German  general,  while  trying  to  sack  the  Bank  of 
England,  would  find  that  his  own  balance  in  the 
Bank  of  Berlin  would  have  vanished  into  thin  air 
and  the  value  of  even  the  best  of  his  investments 
dwindled  as  though  by  a  miracle;  and  that  for  the 
sake  of  loot,  amounting  to  a  few  sovereigns  apiece 
among  his  soldiery,  he  would  have  sacrificed 
the  greater  part  of  his  own  personal  fortune. 
It  is  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that  were  the 
German  Army  guilty  of  such  economic  vandalism 
there  is  no  considerable  institution  in  Germany 
that  woidd  escape  grave  damage — a  damage  in 
credit  and  sectirity  so  serious  as  to  constitute  a 
loss  immensely  greater'  than  the  value  of  the 
loot  obtained.  It  is  not  putting  the  case  too 
strongly  to  say  that  for  every  pound  taken  from 
the  Bank  of  England  German  trade  would  suffer 
a  thousand.     The  influence  of  the  whole  finance 

*  Very  many  times  greater,  because  the  bullion  reserve  in  the 
Bank  of  England  is  relatively  small. 


56 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  Germany  would  be  brought  to  bear  on  the 
German  Government  to  put  an  end  to  a  situation 
ruinous  to  German  trade,  and  German  finance 
would  only  be  saved  from  utter  collapse  by  an 
undertaking  on  the  part  of  the  German  Govern- 
ment scrupulously  to  respect  private  property, 
and  especially  bank  reserves.  It  is  true  the 
German  Jingoes  might  wonder  what  they  had 
made  war  for,  and  an  elementary  lesson  in  inter- 
national finance  which  the  occasion  afforded 
would  do  more  than  the  greatness  of  the  British 
Navy  to  cool  their  blood.  For  it  is  a  fact  in 
htunan  nature  that  men  will  fight  more  readily 
than  they  will  pay,  and  that  they  will  take  per- 
sonal risks  much  more  readily  than  they  will 
disgorge  money,  or  for  that  matter  earn  it. 
"Man,*'  in  the  language  of  Bacon,  "loves  danger 
better  than  travail. " 

Events  which  are  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
business  men  show  the  extraordinary  interde- 
pendence of  the  modem  financial  world.  A 
financial  crisis  in  New  York  sends  up  the  English 
bank  rate  to  7  per  cent.,  thus  involving  the  ruin 
of  many  English  businesses  which  might  other- 
wise have  weathered  a  difficult  period.  It  thus 
happens  that  one  section  of  the  financial  world 
is  against  its  will  compelled  to  come  to  the  rescue 
of  any  other  considerable  section  which  may  be 
in  distress. 

From  one  of  the  very  latest  treatises  on  inter- 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    57 

national   finance,*    I    make   the  following  very 
suggestive  quotations: 

Banking  in  all  countries  hangs  together  so  closely 
that  the  strength  of  the  best  may  easily  be  that  of 
the  weakest  if  scandal  arises  owing  to  the  mistakes 
of  the  worst.  .  .  .  Just  as  a  man  cycling  down  a 
crowded  street  depends  for  his  life,  not  only  on  his 
skill,  but  more  on  the  course  of  the  traffic  there.  .  .  . 
Banks  in  Berlin  were  obliged,  from  motives  of  self- 
protection  (on  the  occasion  of  the  Wall  Street  crisis), 
to  let  some  of  their  gold  go  to  assuage  the  American 
craving  for  it.  ...  If  the  crisis  became  so  severe  that 
London  had  to  restrict  its  facilities  in  this  respect, 
other  centres,  which  habitually  keep  balances  in  Lon- 
don which  they  regard  as  so  much  gold,  because  a  draft 
on  London  is  as  good  as  gold,  wotdd  find  themselves 
very  seriously  inconvenienced;  and  it  thus  follows  that 
it  is  to  the  interest  of  all  other  centres,  which  trade 
on  those  facilities  which  London  alone  gives,  to  take 
care  that  London's  task  is  not  made  too  difficult. 
This  is  especially  so  in  the  case  of  foreigners  who  keep 
a  balance  in  London  which  is  borrowed.  In  fact, 
London  drew  in  the  gold  required  for  New  York  from 
seventeen  other  countries.  .  .  . 

Incidentally  it  may  be  mentioned  in  this  con- 
nection that  German  commerce  is  in  a  special 
sense  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  English 
credit.    The  authority  just  quoted  says: 

*  Hartley  Withers,  The  Meaning  of  Money, 


58 


The  Great  Illusion 


It  is  even  contended  that  the  rapid  expansion  of 
German  trade,  which  pushed  itself  largely  by  its 
elasticity  and  adaptability  to  the  wishes  of  its  cus- 
tomers, could  never  have  been  achieved  if  it  had  not 
been  assisted  by  the  large  credit  furnished  in  London. 
.  .  .  No  one  can  quarrel  with  the  Germans  for  making 
use  of  the  credit  we  offered  for  the  expansion  of  the 
German  trade,  although  their  over-extension  of  credit 
facilities  has  had  results  which  fall  on  others  besides 
themselves.  .  .  . 

Let  us  hope  that  our  German  friends  are  duly 
grateful,  and  let  us  avoid  the  mistake  of  supposing 
that  we  have  done  ourselves  any  permanent  harm  by 
giving  this  assistance.  It  is  to  the  economic  interests 
of  humanity  at  large  that  production  should  be 
stimulated,  and  the  economic  interests  of  humanity  at 
large  is  the  interest  of  England,  with  its  mighty  world- 
wide trade.  Germany  has  quickened  production  with 
the  help  of  English  credit,  and  so  has  every  other 
economically  civilized  country  in  the  world.  It  is  a 
fact  that  all  of  them,  including  our  own  Colonies, 
develop  their  resources  with  the  help  of  British  capital 
and  credit,  and  then  do  their  utmost  to  keep  out  our 
productions  by  means  of  tariffs,  which  makes  it  appear 
to  superficial  observers  that  England  provides  capital 
for  the  destruction  of  its  own  business.  But  in  prac- 
tice the  system  works  quite  otherwise,  for  all  these 
cotmtries  that  develop  their  resources  with  our  money 
aim  at  developing  an  export  trade  and  selling  goods 
to  us,  and,  as  they  have  not  yet  reached  the  point  of 
economic  altruism  at  which  they  are  prepared  to  sell 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    59 


goods  for  nothing,  the  increase  in  their  production 
means  an  increasing  demand  for  our  commodities  and 
our  services.  And  in  the  meantime  the  interest  on 
our  capital  and  credit  and  the  profits  of  working  the 
machinery  of  exchange  are  a  comfortable  addition  to 
our  national  income. 


'1 


But  what  is  a  further  corollary  of  this  situa- 
tion? It  is  that  Germany  is  to-day  in  a  larger 
sense  than  she  ever  was  before  England's  debtor, 
and  that  her  industrial  success  is  bound  up  with 
England's  financial  security. 

What  would  be  the  situation  in  Britain,  there- 
fore, on  the  morrow  of  a  conflict  in  which  she 
were  successful? 

I  have  seen  mentioned  the  possibility  of  the 
conquest  and  annexation  of  the  free  port  of 
Hamburg  by  a  victorious  British  fleet.  Let  us 
asstime  that  the  British  Government  has  done 
this  and  is  proceeding  to  turn  the  annexed  and 
confiscated  property  to  accoimt. 

Now,  the  property  was  originally  of  two  kinds: 
part  was  private  property,  and  part  was  German 
government,  or  rather  Hamburg  government, 
property.  The  income  of  the  latter  was  ear- 
marked for  the  payment  of  interest  of  certain 
government  stock,  and  the  action  of  the  British 
Government,  therefore,  renders  it  all  but  value- 
less, and  in  the  case  of  the  shares  of  the  private 
companies  entirely  so.     The  paper  becomes  un- 


n 


6o 


The  Great  Illusion 


saleable.  But  it  is  held  in  various  forms — ^as 
collateral  and  otherwise — by  many  important 
banking  concerns,  insurance  companies,  and  so 
on,  and  this  sudden  collapse  of  value  shatters 
their  solvency.  Their  collapse  not  only  involves 
many  credit  institutions  in  Germany,  but,  as 
these  in  their  turn  are  considerable  debtors  of 
London,  English  institutions  are  also  involved. 
London  is  also  involved  in  another  way.  As 
explained  previously,  many  foreign  concerns 
keep  balances  in  London,  and  the  action  of  the 
British  Government  having  precipitated  a  mone- 
tary crisis  in  Germany,  there  is  a  two.  on  London 
to  withdraw  all  balances.  In  a  double  sense 
London  is  feeHng  the  pinch,  and  it  would  be  a 
miracle  if  already  at  this  point  the  whole  influ- 
ence of  British  finance  were  not  thrown  against 
the  action  of  the  British  Government.  Assume, 
however,  that  the  Government,  making  the  best 
of  a  bad  job,  continues  its  administration  of  the 
property,  and  proceeds  to  arrange  for  loans  for 
the  purpose  of  putting  it  once  more  in  good 
condition  after  the  ravage  of  war.  The  banks, 
however,  finding  that  the  original  titles  have, 
through  the  action  of  the  British  Government 
become  waste  paper,  and  British  financiers 
having  already  burned  their  fingers  with  that 
particular  class  of  property,  withhold  support, 
and  money  is  only  procurable  at  extortionate 
rates  of  interest,  so  extortionate   that  it   b^ 


The  Impossibility  of  Confiscation    6i 

comes  quite  evident  that  as  a  governmental 
enterprise  the  thing  could  not  be  made  to  pay. 
An  attempt  is  made  to  sell  the  property  to  British 
and  German  concerns.  But  the  same  paralyzing 
sense  of  insecurity  hangs  over  the  whole  business. 
Neither  German  nor  British  financiers  can  forget 
that  the  bonds  and  shares  of  this  property  have 
already  been  turned  into  waste  paper  by  the  action 
of  the  British  Government.  The  British  Govern- 
ment finds,  in  fact,  that  it  can  do  nothing  with 
the  financial  world  unless  precedently  it  confirms 
the  title  of  the  original  owners  to  the  property, 
and  gives  an  assurance  that  titles  to  all  pro- 
perty, throughout  the  conquered  territory  shall 
be  respected.  In  other  words,  confiscation  has 
been  a  failure. 

It  would  really  be  interesting  to  know  how 
those  who  talk  as  though  confiscation  were  still 
an  economic  possibility  would  proceed  to  effect 
it.  As  material  property  in  the  form  of  that 
booty  which  used  to  constitute  the  spoils  of 
victory  in  ancient  times,  the  gold  and  silver 
goblets,  etc.,  would  be  quite  inconsiderable,  and 
as  we  cannot  carry  away  sections  of  Berlin  and 
Hamburg  we  could  only  annex  the  paper  tokens 
of  wealth — the  shares  and  bonds.  But  the  value 
of  those  tokens  depends  upon  the  reliance  which 
can  be  placed  upon  the  execution  of  the  con- 
tracts which  they  embody.  The  act  of  mihtary 
confiscation  upsets  all  contracts,  and  the  courts 


62 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  the  country  from  which  contracts  derive  their 
force  are  paralyzed  because  judicial  decisions  are 
thrust  aside  by  the  sword. 

The  value  of  the  stocks  and  shares  would 
collapse,  and  the  credit  of  aU  those  persons  and 
institutions  interested  in  such  property  would 
also  be  shaken  or  shattered,  and  the  whole  credit 
system,  being  thus  at  the  mercy  of  alien  governors 
only  concerned  to  exact  tribute,  would  collapse 
like  a  house  of  cards.  German  finance  and  in- 
dustry would  show  a  condition  of  panic  and 
disorder  beside  which  the  worst  crises  of  Wall 
Street  would  pale  into  insignificance.  Again, 
what  would  be  the  inevitable  result?  The  finan- 
cial influence  of  London  itself  would  be  thrown 
into  the  scale  to  prevent  a  panic  in  which  London 
financiers  would  be  involved.  In  other  words, 
British  financiers  would  exert  their  influence 
upon  the  British  Government  to  stop  the  process 
of  confiscation. 


CHAPTER  V 

FOREIGN  TRADE  AND  MILITARY  POWER 

Why  trade  cannot  be  destroyed  or  captured  by  a  military  Power 
— ^What  the  processes  of  trade  really  are  and  how  a 
navy  affects  them — "Dreadnoughts"  and  business — ^While 
"Dreadnoughts"  protect  trade  from  hypothetical  German 
warships,  the  real  German  merchant  is  carrying  it  off,  or 
the  Swiss  or  the  Belgian — ^The  "commercial  aggression" 
of  Switzerland — What  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  futility 
of  military  conquest — Government  brigandage  become 
as  profitless  as  private  brigandage — The  real  basis  of 
commercial  honesty  on  the  part  of  government. 

JUST  as  Mr.  Harrison  has  declared  that  a 
"successful  invasion  would  mean  to  us  the 
total  eclipse  of  our  commerce  and  trade,  and 
with  that  trade  the  means  of  feeding  forty  milHons 
in  these  islands,"  so  I  have  seen  it  stated  in  a 
leading  English  paper  that,  "if  Germany  were 
extinguished  to-morrow,  the  day  after  to-morrow 
there  is  not  an  EngUshman  in  the  world  who 
would  not  be  the  richer.  Nations  have  fought 
for  years  over  a  city  or  right  of  succession.  Must 
they  not  fight  for  two  himdred  and  fifty  million 
poimds  of  yearly  commerce  ? '  * 

One  almost  despairs  of  ever  reaching  economic 

63 


K 


64 


The  Great  Illusion 


sanity  when  it  is  possible  for  a  responsible  English 
newspaper  to  print  matter  which  ought  to  be  as 
offensive  to  educated  folk  as  a  defence  of  astrology 
or  of  witchcraft. 

What  does  the  *' extinction*'  of  Germany  mean? 
Does  it  mean  that  we  shall  slay  in  cold  blood 
sixty  or  seventy  milHons  of  men,  women,  and 
children?  Otherwise,  even  though  the  fleet  and 
army  were  annihilated,  the  country's  sixty  mil- 
lion odd  of  workers  still  remain,  who  would  be 
all  the  more  industrious,  as  they  would  have  under- 
gone great  suffering  and  privation— prepared 
to  exploit  their  mines  and  workshops  with  as 
much  thoroughness  and  thrift  and  industry  as 
ever,  and  consequently  just  as  much  our  trade 
rivals  as  ever,  army  or  no  army,  navy  or  no 
navy. 

Even  if  we  could  annihilate  Germany  we 
should  annihilate  such  an  important  section 
of  our  debtors  as  to  create  hopeless  panic  in 
London.  Such  panic  would  so  react  on  our 
own  trade  that  it  would  be  in  no  sort  of 
condition  to  take  the  place  which  Germany  had 
previously  occupied  in  neutral  markets,  aside 
from  the  question  that  by  such  annihilation  a 
market  equal  to  that  of  Canada  and  South 
Africa  combined  would  be  destroyed. 

What  does  this  sort  of  thing  mean?  And  am 
I  wrong  in  saying  that  the  whole  subject  is  over- 
laid and  dominated  by  a  jargon  which  may  have 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power  65 

had  some  relation  to  facts  at  one  time,  but  from 
which  in  our  day  all  meaning  has  departed? 

Our  patriot  may  say  that  he  does  not  mean 
permanent  destruction,  but  only  temporary  "anni- 
hilation." (And  this,  of  course,  on  the  other 
side,  would  mean  not  permanent,  but  only 
temporary  acquisition  of  that  two  hundred  and 
fifty  millions  of  trade.) 

He  might,  like  Mr.  Harrison,  put  the  case 
conversely, — that  if  Germany  could  get  com- 
mand of  the  sea  she  could  cut  us  off  from  our 
customers  and  intercept  our  trade  for  her  benefit. 
This  notion  is  as  absurd  as  the  first.  It  has  al- 
ready been  shown  that  the  "utter  destruction  of 
credit"  and  "incalculable  chaos  in  the  financial 
world,"  which  Mr.  Harrison  foresees  as  the  result 
of  Germany's  invasion,  could  not  possibly  leave 
German  finance  imaffected.  It  is  a  very  open 
question  whether  her  chaos  would  not  be  as  great 
as  England's.  In  any  case,  it  would  be  so  great 
as  thoroughly  to  disorganize  her  industry,  and 
in  that  disorganized  condition  it  would  be  out 
of  the  question  for  her  to  secure  the  markets  left 
unsupplied  by  England's  isolation.  Moreover, 
those  markets  would  also  be  disorganized,  because 
they  depend  upon  England's  ability  to  buy,  which 
Germany  would  be  doing  her  best  to  destroy. 
From  the  chaos  which  she  herself  had  created, 
Germany  could  derive  no  possible  benefit,  and 
she  could  only  terminate  financial  disorder,  fatal 


66 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  her  own  trade,  by  bringing  to  an  end  the  con- 
dition which  had  produced  it — that  is,  by  bringing 
to  an  end  the  isolation  of  Great  Britain. 

With  reference  to  this  section  of  the  subject 
we  can  with  absolute  certainty  say  two  things:  (i) 
That  Germany  can  only  destroy  British  trade  by 
destroying  the  British  population;  and  (2)  that  if 
she  could  destroy  that  population  (which  she  could 
not)  she  would  destroy  one  of  her  most  valuable 
markets,  as  at  the  present  time  she  sells  to  us 
more  than  we  sell  to  her.  The  whole  point  of 
view  involves  a  ftmdamental  misconception  of  the 
real  nature  of  commerce  and  industry. 

Commerce  is  simply  and  purely  the  exchange 
of  one  product  for  another.  If  the  British 
manufacturer  can  make  cloth,  or  cutlery,  or 
machinery,  or  pottery,  or  ships  cheaper  or  better 
than  his  rivals  he  will  obtain  the  trade;  if  he  can- 
not, if  his  goods  are  inferior,  or  dearer,  or  appeal 
less  to  his  customers,  his  rivals  will  secure  the 
trade,  and  the  possession  of  "Dreadnoughts" 
will  make  not  a  whit  of  difference.  Switzerland, 
without  a  single  "Dreadnought,"  will  drive  him 
out  of  the  market  even  of  his  own  Colonies,  as, 
indeed,  she  is  driving  him  out  in  those  cases  which 
I  have  just  referred  to.  The  factors  which  really 
constitute  prosperity  have  not  the  remotest 
connection  with  miHtary  or  naval  power,  all 
our  political  jargon  notwithstanding.  To  destroy 
the  commerce  of  forty  million  people  Germany 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power  67 

would  have  to  destroy  their  coal  and  iron 
mines,  to  destroy  the  energy,  character,  resource- 
fulness of  the  population;  to  destroy,  in  short, 
the  determination  of  forty  million  people  to 
make  their  living  by  the  work  of  their  hands. 
Were  we  not  hypnotized  by  this  extraordinary 
optical  illusion  we  shotdd  accept  it  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  the  prosperity  of  a  people  depends 
upon  such  facts  as  the  natiu*al  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try in  which  they  live,  their  social  discipline 
and  industrial  character,  the  result  of  years,  of 
generations,  of  centuries,  it  may  be,  of  tradition 
and  slow,  elaborate  selective  process,  and,  in 
addition  to  all  these  deep-seated  elementary 
factors,  upon  countless  commercial  and  financial 
ramifications — a  special  technical  capacity  for 
such-and-such  a  manufacture,  a  special  aptitude 
for  meeting  the  pectdiarities  of  such-and-such  a 
market,  the  efficient  equipment  of  elaborately 
constructed  workshops,  the  existence  of  a  popu- 
lation trained  to  given  trades — a  training  not 
infrequently  involving  years,  and  even  genera- 
tions, of  effort.  All  this,  according  to  Mr.  Harri- 
son, is  to  go  for  nothing,  and  Germany  is  to  be 
able  to  replace  it  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and 
forty  million  people  are  to  sit  down  helplessly 
because  Germany  has  been  victorious  at  sea. 
On  the  morrow  of  her  marvellous  victory  Ger- 
many is  by  some  sort  of  miracle  to  find  shipyards, 
foundries,  cotton  mills,  looms,  factories,  coal  and 


68 


The  Great  Illusion 


I     ! 


iron  mines,  and  all  their  equipment,  suddenly  spring 
up  in  Germany  in  order  to  take  the  trade  that  the 
most  successful  manufacturers  and  traders  in  the 
world  have  been  generations  in  building  up ;  Ger- 
many is  to  be  able  suddenly  to  produce  three  or 
four  times  what  her  population  have  hitherto  been 
able  to  produce;  for  she  must  either  do  that  or 
leave  the  markets  which  England  has  supplied 
heretofore  still  available  to  EngHsh  effort.  What 
has  really  fed  these  forty  miUions  who  are  to  starve 
on  the  morrow  of  Germany's  naval  victory  is  the 
fact  that  the  coal  and  iron  exploited  by  them  have 
been  sent  in  one  form  or  another  to  populations 
which  need  those  products.  Is  that  need  suddenly 
to  cease,  or  are  the  forty  milHons  to  be  suddenly 
struck  with  some  sort  of  paralysis  that  all  this 
vast  industry  suddenly  comes  to  an  end?  What 
has  the  victory  of  Britain's  ships  at  sea  to  do  with 
the  fact  that  the  Canadian  farmer  wants  to  buy 
her  ploughs  and  pay  for  them  with  his  wheat?  It 
may  be  true  that  Germany  could  stop  the  importa- 
tion of  that  wheat.  But  why  should  she  want 
to  do  so?  How  would  it  benefit  her  people  to 
do  so?  By  what  sort  of  miracle  is  she  suddenly 
to  be  able  to  supply  products  which  have  kept 
forty  million  people  busy?  By  what  sort  of 
miracle  is  she  suddenly  to  be  able  to  double  her 
industrial  population?  And  by  what  sort  of 
miracle  is  she  to  be  able  to  consume  the  wheat, 
because  if  she  cannot  take  that  wheat  the  Cana- 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power  69 

dian  cannot  buy  her  plough?  I  am  aware  that 
all  this  is  elementary,  that  it  is  economics  in 
words  of  one  syllable ;  but  what  are  the  economics 
of  Mr.  Harrison  and  those  who  think  like  him 
when  he  talks  in  the  strain  of  the  passage  that 
I  have  just  quoted? 

There  is  just  one  other  possible  meaning  that 
the  patriot  may  have  in  his  mind.  He  may  plead 
that  great  military  and  naval  establishments 
do  not  exist  for  the  purpose  of  the  conquest  of 
territory  or  of  destroying  a  rival's  trade,  but  for 
"protecting"  or  indirectly  aiding  trade  and 
industry.  We  are  allowed  to  infer  that  in  some 
not  clearly-defined  way  a  great  Power  can  aid 
the  trade  of  its  nationals  by  the  use  of  the  pre- 
stige which  a  great  navy  and  a  great  army  bring, 
and  by  exercising  bargaining  powers  in  the  matter 
of  tariffs  with  other  nations.  But  again  the  fact 
of  the  small  nations  in  Etirope  gives  the  He  to 
this  assumption. 

It  is  evident  that  the  foreigner  does  not  buy 
England's  products  and  refuse  Germany's  because 
England  has  a  larger  navy.  If  one  can  imagine 
the  representatives  of  an  English  and  of  a  Ger- 
man firm  in  Argentina,  or  Brazil,  or  Bulgaria,  or 
Finland  meeting  in  the  office  of  a  merchant  in 
Argentina,  or  Brazil,  or  Bulgaria,  or  Finland, 
both  of  them  selling  cutlery,  the  German  is  not 
going  to  secure  the  order  because  he  is  able  to 
show  the  Argentinian,  or  the  Brazilian,  or  the 


70 


The  Great  Illusion 


Btilgarian,  or  the  Finn  that  Germany  has  twelve 
"Dreadnoughts'*  and  England  only  eight.  The 
German  will  take  the  order  if,  on  the  whole,  he 
can  make  a  more  advantageous  offer  to  the 
prospective  buyer,  and  for  no  other  reason 
whatsoever,  and  the  buyer  will  go  to  the 
merchant  of  whatever  nation,  whether  he  be 
German,  or  Swiss,  or  Belgian,  or  British,  irre- 
spective of  the  armies  and  navies  which  may  lie 
behind  the  nationality  of  the  seller.  Nor  does 
it  appear  that  armies  and  navies  weigh  in  the 
least  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  a  tariff 
bargain.  Switzerland  wages  a  tariff  war  with 
Germany,  and  wins.  The  whole  history  of  the 
trade  of  the  small  nations  shows  that  the  political 
prestige  of  the  great  ones  gives  them  practically 
no  commercial  advantage. 

We  continually  talk  as  though  the  English  carry- 
ing trade  were  in  some  special  sense  the  result  of  the 
growth  of  England's  great  navy,  but  Norway  has 
a  carrying  trade  which,  relatively  to  her  popula- 
tion, is  nearly  three  times  as  great  as  England's, 
and  the  same  reasons  which  would  make  it  im- 
possible for  a  foreign  nation  to  confiscate  the 
gold  reserve  of  the  Bank  of  England  would  make 
it  impossible  for  a  foreign  nation  to  confiscate 
British  shipping  on  the  morrow  of  a  British 
naval  defeat.  In  what  way  can  the  carrying 
trade  or  any  other  trade  be  said  to  depend  upon 
military  power? 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power  71 

As  I  write  these  lines  there  comes  to  my  notice 
a  series  of  articles  in  the  Daily  Mail,  written  by 
Mr.  F.  A.  McKenzie,  explaining  how  it  is  that 
England  is  losing  the  trade  of  Canada.  In  one 
article  he  quotes  a  nimiber  of  Canadian  merchants : 

"We  buy  very  little  direct  from  England,"  said 
Mr.  Harry  McGee,  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  the 
company,  in  answer  to  my  questions.  "We  keep  a 
staff  in  London  of  twenty,  supervising  our  Etiropean 
ptirchases,  but  the  orders  go  mostly  to  France,  Ger- 
many, and  Switzerland,  and  not  to  England." 

And  in  a  fiirther  article  he  notes  that  many 
orders  are  going  to  Belgium.  Now  the  question 
arises :  What  more  can  England's  navy  do  that  it 
has  not  done  in  Canada?  And  yet  the  trade  goes 
to  Switzerland  and  Belgitun.  Are  you  going  to 
protect  the  English  merchant  against  the  com- 
mercial "aggression"  of  Switzerland  by  building 
a  dozen  more  "Dreadnoughts"?  Suppose  Eng- 
land could  conquer  Switzerland  and  Belgiimi  with 
her  "Dreadnoughts,"  woidd  not  the  trade  of 
Switzerland  and  Belgium  go  on  all  the  same? 
Her  arms  have  brought  England  Canada — but  not 
the  Canadian  orders,  which  go  to  Switzerland. 

If  the  traders  of  little  nations  can  snap  their 
fingers  at  the  great  war  lords,  why  do  British 
traders  need  "Dreadnoughts"?  If  Swiss  com- 
mercial prosperity  is  sectire  from  the  aggression 
of   a   neighbour   who  outweighs  Switzerland  in 


72 


The  Great  Illusion 


military  power  a  hundred  to  one,  how  comes  it 
that  the  trade  and  industry,  the  very  Hfe-bread 
of  her  children,  as  Mr.  Harrison  wotild  have  us 
beHeve,  of  the  greatest  nation  in  history  is  in 
danger  of  imminent  annihilation? 

If  the  statesmen  of  Europe  would  tell  us  how 
the  military  power  of  a  great  nation  is  used  to 
advance  the  commercial  interest  of  its  citizens, 
would  explain  to  us  the  modus  operandi,  and  not 
refer  us  to  large  and  vague  phrases  about  "exer- 
cising due  weight  in  the  councils  of  the  nations," 
one  might  accept  their  philosophy.  But  tuitil 
they  do  so  we  are  stuely  justified  in  asstuning  that 
their  political  terminology  is  simply  a  survival 
— an  inheritance  from  a  state  of  things  which 
has,  in  fact,  long  since  passed  away. 

It  is  facts  of  the  nature  of  those  I  have  in- 
stanced which  constitute  the  real  protection  of  the 
small  State,  and  which  are  bound  as  they  gain 
in  general  recognition  to  constitute  the  real 
protection  from  outside  aggression  of  all  States, 
great  or  small. 

One  financial  authority  from  whom  I  have 
quoted  noted  that  this  elaborate  financial  inter- 
dependence of  the  modern  world  has  grown  up 
in  spite  of  ourselves,  *' without  our  noticing  it 
until  we  put  it  to  some  rude  test."  Men  are 
fundamentally  just  as  disposed  as  they  were  at 
any  time  to  take  wealth  that  does  not  belong  to 
them,  which  they  have  not  earned.    But  their 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   73 

relative  interest  in  the  matter  has  changed. 
In  very  primitive  conditions  robbery  is  a  mod- 
erately profitable  enterprise.  Where  the  rewards 
of  labotur,  owing  to  the  inefficiency  of  the  means 
of  production,  are  small  and  tmcertain,  and 
where  all  wealth  is  portable,  raiding  and  theft 
offer  the  best  reward  for  the  enterprise  of  the 
cotu-ageous;  in  such  conditions  the  size  of  man's 
wealth  depends  a  good  deal  on  the  size  of  his 
club  and  the  agility  with  which  he  wields  it.  But 
to  the  man  whose  wealth  so  largely  depends  upon 
his  credit  and  on  his  paper  being  "good  paper" 
in  the  City,  dishonesty  has  become  as  precarious 
and  profitless  as  honest  toil  was  in  more  primitive 
times. 

The  instincts  of  the  City  man  may  at  bottom 
be  just  as  predatory  as  those  of  the  cattle-lifter 
or  the  robber  baron,  but  taking  property  by 
force  has  become  one  of  the  least  profitable  and 
the  most  speculative  forms  of  enterprise  in 
which  he  could  engage.  The  force  of  commer- 
cial events  has  rendered  the  thing  impossible. 
I  know  that  the  defender  of  arms  will  reply  that 
it  is  the  police  who  have  rendered  it  impossible. 
This  is  not  true.  There  were  as  many  armed 
men  in  Eiu-ope  in  the  days  when  the  robber  baron 
carried  on  his  occupation  as  there  are  in  oiu*  day. 
To  say  that  the  policeman  makes  him  impos- 
sible is  to  put  the  cart  before  the  horse.  What 
created  the  police  and  made  them  possible,  if  it 


74 


The  Great  Illusion 


was  not  the  general  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
disorder  and  aggression  make  trade  impossible?' 

Just  note  what  is  taking  place  in  South  America. 
States  in  which  repudiation  was  a  commonplace 
of  everyday  politics  have  of  recent  years  become 
as  stable  and  as  respectable  as  the  City  of  Lon- 
don, and  discharge  their  obligations  as  regularly. 
Does  this  mean  that  the  people  have  become 
more  moral,  that  the  original  wdckedness  of  their 
nature,  which  made  of  their  countries  during 
hundreds  of  years  a  slough  of  disorder  and  a 
nev^-ending  sanguinary  scramble  for  the  spoils, 
has  in  a  matter  of  fifteen  or  twenty  years  com- 
pletely changed?  Probably  not;  and  whether 
it  has  or  not  does  not  much  matter.  What 
matters  is  that  the  manifestations  of  their  nature 
have  changed  a  great  deal. 

These  cotmtries,  like  Brazil  and  the  Argentine, 
have  been  drawn  into  the  circle  of  international 
trade,  exchange,  and  finance.  Their  economic 
relationships  have  become  sufficiently  extensive 
and  complex  to  make  repudiation  the  least 
profitable  form  of  theft.  The  financier  will  tell 
you  "they  cannot  afford  to  repudiate."  If  any 
attempt  at  repudiation  were  made,  all  sorts  of 
property,  either  directly  or  indirectly  connected 
with  the  orderly  execution  of  govenimental 
functions,  would  stiffer,  banks  would  become  in- 

« See  Chap,  v.,  Part  ii.,  for  the  completer  explanatbn  of  the 
law  underlying  the  fact. 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   75 

volved,  great  businesses  would  stagger,  and  the 
whole  financial  commimity  would  protest.    To 
attempt  to  escape  the  payment  of  a  single  loan 
would   involve   the   business    world    in     losses 
amounting  to  many  times  the  value  of  the  loan. ' 
It  is  only  where  a  community  has  nothing  to 
lose,  no  banks,  no  personal  fortiines  dependent 
upon  public  good  faith,  no  great  businesses,  no 
industries,  that  the  government   can   afford  to 
repudiate  its  obligations  or  to  disregard  the  general 
code  of  economic  morality.     This  was  the  case 
with   Argentina   and   Brazil   a   generation   ago; 
and   also   to   some   extent   with   some   Central 
American   States   to-day.    It  is  not  because  the 
armies  in  these  States  have  grown  that  the  public 
credit  has  improved.    Their  armies  were  greater 
a  generation  ago  than  they  are  now.     It  is  because 
they  know  that  trade  and  finance  are  built  upon 
credit — ^that  is,   confidence  in  the  fulfilment  of 
obligations,   upon  security   of  tenure  in   titles, 
upon    the    enforcement    of    contract    according 
to  law — and  that  if  credit  is  profoundly  touched, 
there  is  not  a  section  of  the  elaborate  fabric 
which  is  not  affected. 

The  more  our  commercial  system  gains  in 
complication,  the  more  does  the  common  pros- 
perity of  all  of  us  come  to  depend  upon  the 
reliance  which  can  be  placed  on  the  due  per- 
formance of  all  contracts.    This  is  the  real  basis 

«  Chap.  IV.,  Part  n. 


'1 


76 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  "prestige/'  national  and  individual;  circum- 
stances stronger  than  ourselves  are  pushing  us, 
despite  what  the  cynical  critics  of  our  commercial 
civiHzation  may  say,  towards  the  unvarying 
observance  of  this  simple  ideal.  Whenever  we 
drop  back  from  it,  and  such  relapses  occur  as 
we  should  expect  them  to  occur,  especiaUy  in 
those  societies  which  have  just  emerged  from  a 
more  or  less  primitive  State,  punishment  is 
generally  swift  and  sure. 

What  was  the  real  origin  of  the  bank  crisis 
m  the  United  States,  which  had  for  American 
business  men  such  disastrous  consequences?  It 
was  the  loss  by  American  financiers  and  American 
bankers  of  the  confidence  of  the  American  public. 
At  bottom  there  was  no  other  reason.  One 
talks  of  cash  reserves  and  currency  errors;  but 
London,  which  does  the  banking  of  the  universe, 
works  on  the  smallest  cash  reserve  in  the  world,* 
because,  as  an  American  authority  has  put  it* 
"English  bankers  work  with  a  *  psychological 
reserve.' " 

I  quote  from  Mr.  Withers : 

It  is  because  they  [English  bankers]  are  so  safe, 
so  straight,  so  sensible,  from  an  American  point  of 
view  so  unenterprising,  that  they  are  able  to  build  up 
a  bigger  credit  fabric  on  a  smaller  gold  basis,  and  even 
carry  this  building  to  a  height  which  they  themselves 
have  decided  to  be  questionable.  This  "psycho- 
logical reserve"  is  the  priceless  possession  that  has 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   77 

been  handed  down  through  generations  of  good 
bankers,  and  every  individual  of  every  generation 
who  receives  it  can  do  something  to  maintain  and 
improve  it. 

But  it  was  not  always  thus,  and  it  is  merely  the 
many  ramifications  of  our  commercial  and  financial 
world  that  have  brought  this  about.  In  the  end 
the  Americans  will  imitate  the  London  bankers, 
or  they  will  suffer  from  a  hopeless  disadvan- 
tage in  their  financial  competition.  Commercial 
development  is  broadly  illustrating  one  profound 
truth:  that  the  real  basis  of  social  morality  is 
self-interest.  If  English  banks  and  insurance 
companies  have  become  absolutely  honest  in 
their  administration,  it  is  because  dishonesty  of 
any  one  threatened  the  prosperity  of  all. 

What  bearing  has  the  development  of  com- 
mercial morality  on  the  matter  in  hand?  A 
very  direct  one.  If,  as  Mr.  Chamberlain  avers, 
the  subject  of  rivalry  between  nations  is  busi- 
ness, the  code  which,  despite  the  promptings  of 
the  nattiral  man,  has  come  to  dominate  business, 
must  necessarily  come,  if  their  object  really  is 
business,  to  dominate  the  conduct  of  governments. 
One  cannot  take  up  the  speech  of  a  statesman 
even  of  the  first  rank,  or  a  leading  article  in  even 
the  foremost  papers  dealing  with  international 
relations,  without  finding  it  assumed  as  a  matter 
of  cotirse,  as  Mr.  Harrison  assumes  in  the  quo- 
tations that  I  have  made,  that  European  gov- 


78 


The  Great  Illusion 


ernments  have  the  instincts  of  Congo  savages, 
the  foresight  of  cattle-lifters,  and  the  business 
morals  of  South  American  adventurers.  Are  we 
to  assume  that  the  governments  of  the  world, 
which,  presumably,  are  directed  by  men  as  far- 
sighted  as  bankers,  are  permanently  to  fall  below 
the  banker  in  their  conception  of  enlightened 
self-interest?  Are  we  to  assume  that  what  is 
self-evident  to  the  banker— namely,  that  the 
repudiation  of  our  engagements,  or  any  attempt 
at  financial  plunder,  is  sheer  stupidity  and  com- 
mercial suicide— is  for  ever  to  remain  unperceived 
by  the  ruler?  But  if  the  ruler  sees  that  the 
seizure  of  an  enemy's  property  is  economically 
injurious  to  the  nation  seizing  it,  and  is  for  that 
reason  intangible,  why  do  we  go  in  such  night- 
mare terror  and  spend  our  substance  arming 
colossally  against  so  problematic  an  attack? 

The  following  correspondence,  provoked  by  the 
first  edition  of  this  book,  may  throw  light  on 
some  of  the  points  dealt  with  in  this  chapter.  A 
correspondent  of  Public  Opinion  criticized  a  part 
of  the  theses  here  dealt  with  as  a  "  series  of  half- 
truths,"  questioning  as  folio ws: 

What  is  *' natural  wealth,"  and  how  can  trade  be 
carried  on  with  it  unless  there  are  markets  for  it  when 
worked?  Would  the  writer  maintain  that  markets 
cannot  be  permanently  or  seriously  affected  by  mili- 
tary conquest,  especially  if  conquest  be  followed  by 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   79 

the  imposition  upon  the  vanquished  of  commercial 
conditions  framed  in  the  interests  of  the  victor?  .  .  . 
Germany  has  derived,  and  continues  to  derive,  great 
advantages    from    the  most-favotu-ed-nation  clause 
which  she  compelled  France  to  insert  in  the  Treaty  of 
Frankfurt.  .  .  .  Bismarck,  it  is  true,  underestimated 
the  financial  resilience  of  France,  and  was  sorely  dis- 
appointed when  the  French  paid  off  the  indemnity  with 
such  astonishing  rapidity,  and  thus  liberated  them- 
selves from  the  equally  crushing  burden  of  having 
to  maintain  the  German  army  of  occupation.     He 
regretted  not  having  demanded  an  indemnity  twice 
as  large.     Germany  would  not  repeat  the  mistake, 
and  any  country  having  the  misfortune  to  be  van- 
quished by  her  in  future  will  be  likely  to  find  its 
commercial  prosperity  compromised  for  decades. 

To  which  I  replied: 

Will  your  correspondent  forgive  my  saying  that 
while  he  talks  of  half-truths,  the  whole  of  this  passage 
indicates  the  domination  of  just  that  particular  half- 
truth  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  illusion  with 
which  my  book  deals? 

What  is  a  market?  Your  correspondent  evidently 
conceives  it  as  a  place  where  things  are  sold.  That 
is  only  half  the  truth.  It  is  a  place  where  things  are 
bought  and  sold,  and  one  operation  is  impossible 
without  the  other,  and  the  notion  that  one  nation  can 
sell  for  ever  and  never  buy  is  simply  the  theory  of 
perpetual  motion  applied  to  economics;  and  inter- 
national trade  can  no  more  be  based  upon  perpetual 
motion  than  can  engineering.    As  between  economi- 


I 


80 


The  Great  Illusion 


cally  highly-organized  nations  a  customer  must  also  be 
a  competitor,  a  fact  which  bayonets  cannot  alter. 
To  the  extent  to  which  they  destroy  him  as  a  com- 
petitor, they  destroy  him,  speaking  generally  and 
largely,  as  a  customer. 

The  late  Mr.  Seddon  conceived  England  as  making 
her  purchases  with  **a  stream  of  golden  sovereigns" 
flowing  from  a  stock  all  the  time  getting  smaller. 
That  "practical"  man,  however,  who  so  despised 
"mere  theories,"  was  himself  the  victim  of  a  pure 
theory,  and  the  picture  which  he  conjured  up  from 
his  inner  consciousness  has  no  existence  in  fact. 
England  has  hardly  enough  gold  to  pay  one  year's 
taxes,  and  if  she  paid  for  her  imports  in  gold  she  would 
exhaust  her  stock  in  six  months;  and  the  process  by 
which  she  really  pays  has  been  going  on  for  sixty  years. 
She  is  a  buyer  just  as  long  as  she  is  a  seller,  and  if  she 
is  to  afford  a  market  to  Germany  she  must  procure  the 
money  wherewith  to  pay  for  Germany's  goods  by 
selling  goods  to  Germany  or  elsewhere,  and  if  that 
process  of  sale  stops  Germany  loses  a  market,  not  only 
the  English  market,  but  also  those  markets  which 
depend  in  their  turn  upon  England's  capacity  to 
buy— that  is  to  say,  to  sell,  for,  again,  the  one  opera- 
tion is  impossible  without  the  other. 

If  your  correspondent  had  had  the  whole  process  in 
his  mind  instead  of  half  of  it,  I  do  not  think  that  he 
would  have  written  the  passages  I  have  quoted.  In 
his  endorsement  of  the  Bismarckian  conception  of 
political  economy  he  evidently  deems  that  one  nation's  . 
gain  is  the  measure  of  another  nation's  loss,  and  that 
nations  live  by  robbing  their  neighbours  in  a  lesser  or 
greater  degree.    This  is  economics  d  la  Tamerlane 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   8i 

and  the  Red  Indian,  and,  happily,  has  no  relation  to 
the  real  facts  of  modem  commercial  intercourse. 

The  conception  of  one  half  of  the  case  only  domin- 
ates your  correspondent's  letter  throughout.  He 
says,  "Germany  has  derived,  and  continues  to  derive, 
great  advantage  from  the  most-favoured-nation  clause 
which  she  compelled  France  to  insert  in  the  Treaty  of 
Frankfurt."  Which  is  quite  true,  but  leaves  out  the 
other  half  of  the  truth,  which  is  somewhat  important 
to  our  discussion— viz.,  that  France  has  also  greatly 
benefited,  in  that  the  scope  of  fruitless  tariff  war  has 
been  by  so  much  restricted. 

A  further  illustration:  Why  should  Germany  have 
been  sorely  disappointed  at  France's  rapid  recovery? 
The  German  people  are  not  going  to  be  the  richer  for 
having  a  poor  neighbour — on  the  contrary,  they 
are  going  to  be  the  poorer,  and  there  is  not  an  econo- 
mist with  a  reputation  to  lose,  whatever  his  views 
of  fiscal    policy,  who  would   challenge  this   for   a 

moment. 

How  would  Germany  impose  upon  a  vanquished 
England    commercial    arrangements    which    would 
impoverish  the  vanquished  and  enrich  the  victor? 
By  enforcing  another  Frankfurt  treaty,  by  which 
English   ports   should    be    kept    open    to   German 
goods?     But  that  is  precisely  what  English  ports 
have  been  for  sixty  years,  and  Germany  has  not  been 
obliged  to  go  to  a  costly  war  to  effect  it.     Would 
Germany  close  her    own    markets   to    our    goods? 
But,  again,  that  is  precisely  what  she  has  done— 
again  without  war,  and  by  a  right  which  we  never 
dream  of  challenging.     How  is  war  going   to   affect 
the  question  one  way  or  another?    I  have  been  asking 


82 


The  Great  Illusion 


for  a  detailed  answer  to  that  question  from  European 
publicists  and  statesmen  for  the  last  ten  years,  and  I 
have  never  yet  been  answered,  save  by  much  vague- 
ness, much  fine  phrasing  concerning  commercial  su- 
premacy, a  spirited  foreign  policy,  national  prestige, 
and  much  else,  which  no  one  seems  able  to  define — but 
a  real  policy,  a  modus  operandi,  a  balance-sheet  which 
one  can  analyze,  never.  And  until  such  is  forthcom- 
ing I  shall  continue  to  believe  that  the  whole  thing  is 
based  upon  an  illusion. 

The  true  test  of  fallacies  of  this  kind  is  progression. 
Imagine  Germany  (as  British  Jingoes  seem  to  dream 
of  her)  absolute  master  of  Europe,  and  able  to  dictate 
any  policy  that  she  pleased.  How  wo\ild  she  treat 
such  a  European  empire?  By  impoverishing  its 
component  parts?  But  that  would  be  suicidal. 
Where  would  her  big  industrial  population  find 
their  markets?  If  she  set  out  to  develop  and  enrich 
the  component  parts,  these  would  become  merely 
efficient  competitors,  and  she  need  not  have  under- 
taken the  costliest  war  of  history  to  arrive  at  that 
result.  This  is  the  paradox,  the  futility  of  conquest — 
the  great  illusion  which  the  history  of  our  own  Empire 
so  well  illustrates.  England  "owns"  her  Empire  by 
allowing  its  component  parts  to  develop  themselves 
in  their  own  way,  and  in  view  of  their  own  ends,  and 
all  the  empires  which  have  pursued  any  other  policy 
have  only  ended  by  impoverishing  their  own  popu- 
lations and  falling  to  pieces. 

Your  correspondent  asks:  "Is  Mr.  Norman  Angell 
prepared  to  maintain  that  Japan  has  derived  no 
political  or  commercial  advantages  from  her  victories, 
and  that  Russia  has  suffered  no  loss  from  defeat?  ** 


Foreign  Trade  and  Military  Power   83 

What  I  am  prepared  to  maintain,  and  what  the 
experts  know  to  be  the  truth,  is  that  the  Japanese 
people  are  the  poorer,  not  the  richer,  for  their  war,  and 
that  the  Russian  people  will  gain  more  from  defeat 
than  they  could  possibly  have  gained  by  victory, 
since  defeat  will  constitute  a  check  on  the  economically 
sterile  policy  of  military  and  territorial  aggrandisement 
and  turn  Russian  energies  to  social  and  economic 
development ;  and  it  is  because  of  this  fact  that  Russia 
is  at  the  present  moment,   despite   her   desperate 
internal  troubles,  showing  a  capacity  for  economic 
regeneration  as  great  as,  if  not  greater  than,  that  of 
Japan.      This  latter   country    has   recently   beaten 
all  records  for  heavy  taxation:  on  the  average  the 
people  pay  thirty  per  cent,  of  their  net  income  in  taxa- 
tion in  one  form  or  another — a  taxation  which  wotdd 
create  a  revolution  in  Europe  or    America  within 
twenty-four  hours.      On  the  other  side,  for  the  first 
time  in  twenty  years  the  Russian  Budget  shows  a 
surplus. 

This  recovery  of  the  defeated  nation  after  wars  is 
becoming  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  modem  history. 
Ten  years  after  the  Franco- Prussian  War  France  was 
in  a  better  financial  position  than  Germany,  as  she  is 
in  a  better  financial  position  to-day,  and  though  her 
foreign  trade  does  not  show  the  expansion  that  that 
of  Germany  does — because  her  population  remains 
absolutely  stationary,  while  that  of  Germany  increases 
by  leaps  and  bounds — the  French  people  as  a  whole  are 
more  prosperous,  more  comfortable,  more  economically 
secure,  with  a  greater  reserve  of  savings,  and  all  the 
moral  and  social  advantage  that  goes  therewith,  than 
are  the  Germans.     In  the  same  way  the  social  and 


84 


The  Great  Illusion 


industrial  renaissance  of  modern  Spain  dates  from  the 
day  that  she  was  defeated  and  lost  her  colonies,  and  it 
is  since  her  defeat  that  Spanish  securities  have  just 
doubled  in  value.  It  is  since  England  added  the 
"gold-fields  of  the  world"  to  her  "possessions"  that 
British  Consols  have  dropped  twenty  points.  Such 
is  the  outcome  in  terms  of  social  well-being  of  military 
success  and  political  prestige! 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  INDEMNITY  FUTILITY 

What  is  the  real  profit  of  a  nation  from  indemnity  ?— How  a 
person  differs  from  a  State— An  old  illusion  as  to  gold  and 
wealth — What  happened  in  1870 — Germany  and  France  in 
the  decade  1 870-1 88o~Bismarck's  testimony. 

IN  politics  it  is  unfortunately  true  that  ten 
sovereigns  which  can  be  seen  bulk  more  largely 
in  the  public  mind  than  a  million  which  happen  to 
be  out  of  sight  but  are  none  the  less  real.  Thus, 
however  clearly  the  wastefulness  of  war  and  the 
impossibility  of  effecting  by  its  means  any  per- 
manent economic  or  social  advantage  for  the 
conqueror  may  be  shown,  the  fact  that  Germany 
was  able  to  exact  an  indemnity  of  two  himdred 
millions  sterling  from  France  at  the  close  of  the 
war  of  1870-71  is  taken  as  conclusive  evidence 
that  a  nation  can  '*make  money  by  war.*' 

A  very  porominent  English  public  man,  pushed 
recently  in  private  conversation  to  show  an 
adequate  motive  for  Germany's  aggression  upon 
England,  urged  seriously  that  Germany  would 
fight  simply  to  make  money ;  that  she  made  money 
out  of  Austria,  and  again  out  of  France,  and  that 

85 


Wfc'' 


86 


The  Great  Illusion 


she  would  fight  England  for  the  sake  of  a  thousand 
million  indemnity. 

In  reply  to  such  a  plea,  it  would,  of  course,  be 
easy  to  establish  a  balance-sheet,  putting  on  the 
debit  side  some  such  Hst  as  the  following:  the 
cost  of  war  preparation  during  the  years  that 
precede  a  conflict;  the  disorder  and  ruin  which 
war  itself  causes;  the  killing  and  disablement  of 
a  large  number  of  a  nation's  sttirdiest  citizens 
(sturdiest  because  selected,  so  that  war  consti- 
tutes the  eHmination,  not  of  the  imfit  but  of  the 
fittest),  the  corresponding  losses  which  Hmit  the 
subsequent    purchasing    power   of   the   defeated 
nation  and  which  consequently  react  in  the  shape 
of  lost  markets  on  the  conqueror;  the  subsequent 
burden  which  even  victory  entails — that  is  to 
say,  the  preventive  measures  to  be  taken  against 
a  guerre  de  revanche ;  the  increase  of  f orc^e  which 
it    is    necessary    to    offset   against   the   enmity 
entailed  in  general  politics  by  the  efforts  and  in- 
trigues of  the  vanquished;  and,  in  addition  to  all 
this,  the  check  in  normal  and  social  progress  which 
the    militarisation    following    upon    war    always 
involves,  a  setback  which  is  shown  in  the  case 
of  Germany  by  the  fact  that  she  alone  of  the  great 
States  is  forced  by  grave  difficulties  due  to  the 
survival    of    sheer    feudalism,   difficulties  which 
are  none  the  less  great  because  they  are  in  the 
eyes  of  Europe  generally   for  the  moment  ob- 
scured by  theatrical  industrial  success  in  foreign 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


87 


markets,  and  which  are  reflected  by  the  growing 
power  of  the  progressive  party  which,  every  edu- 
cated German  knows,  cannot  for  ever  be  held  at 
bay  by  sheer  domination  of  Prussian  autocracy. 
As  against  all  this,  an  indemnity,  even  of  a  thou- 
sand million,  woiild  make  the  proposition  very 
bad  business  indeed.     On  such  a  balance-sheet 
being  roughly  indicated,  however,  the  public  man 
in  question  immediately  retorted  by   declaring 
that,  so  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  much  of  the 
cost  has  already  been  incurred  and  cannot  be 
recovered,  and  must  consequently  be  paid  whether 
she  fight  or  not.     It  is  worth  considering,  there- 
fore, whether  in  the  circtimstances  of  present-day 
politics  an  actual  transfer  of  a  thousand  millions 
worth  of  real  wealth  from  one  nation  to  another 
is  either  possible,  or,  in  the  terms  of  predominant 
political  economy,  desirable  from  the  point  of 
view  of  those  who  are  to  receive  it.     Let  it  be 
said  at  once  that  there   is  nothing  theoretically 
impossible  in  England's  paying  an  indemnity  of 
a  thousand  millions  sterling  (or  more)  provided 
that    time  were   given,  and   provided   that   the 
German  Government  were  prepared  to  see  Ger- 
man trade  and  finance  suffer  to  a  greater  extent 
probably  than  a  thousand  miUion,  owing  to  the 
very  grave  embarrassment  which  would  certainly 
affect  a  whole  series  of  German  trades  by  the 
withdrawal  of  English  credit  and  English  cheap 
money.     It  is  impossible  to  give  figures  even 


88 


The  Great  Illusion 


approximately,  but  when  it  is  remembered  that 
95  per  cent,  of  the  highly  organized  German 
industries  exist  on  a  basis  of  borrowed  money, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  in  the  last  resort  largely 
EngHsh  money,  and  that  greatly  increased  bank- 
ing charges  wotdd  simply  and  purely  wipe  out  the 
very  small  margin  of  profit  on  which  so  much  of 
German  trade  is  done,  it  is  easy  to  realize  that  a 
thousand  millions  paid  to  the  Government  would 
not  seem  a  very  briUiant  compensation  to  the  Ger- 
man manufacturer  whose  business  had  foundered 
in  a  welter  of  financial  instability  and  high  bank 
rate  throughout  Europe  which  the  withdrawal  of 
such  a  sum  from  London  would  infallibly  cause.  ^ 
For— and  this  is  a  capital  factor  in  the  whole^ 
matter — the  situation  would  not  be  at  all  parallel 
to  that  which  followed  the  Franco-Prussian  war. 
German  trade  in  1870  was  not  in  any  way  de- 
pendent upon  French  money— dependent,  that 
is,  upon  being  able  to  secure  French  credit; 
whereas,  as  we  have  seen,  German  trade  in  19 10 
is  in  a  very  special  sense  dependent  upon  EngHsh 
money  and  the  facilities  of  English  credit.  And 
all  this  is  asstiming — a  very  large  assumption 
indeed — that  the  thousand  millions,  or  any  part 

'  The  Cologne  Gazette  recently  pointed  out  that  so  extensive, 
thanks  to  the  industrial  banks,  has  become  the  use  of  credit 
in  German  business  that  many  of  them  may  be  considered  in 
Stock  Exchange  jargon  as  "trading  on  a  margin."  Every 
operator  knows  what  happens  to  a  "  marginal  account  "  when 
the  bank  rate  takes  a  jump  and  securities  fail  in  value. 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


89 


of  it,  would  remain  as  booty  after  the  payment  of 
expenses  of  the  war,   repairing  damage  caused 
by  the  war,  and  providing  against  future  hostility. 
If  a  war  against  a  handful  of  farmers,  without  so 
much  as  a  gunboat  to  their  name,  cost  Great 
Britain  a  quarter  of  the  stmi  in  question,  it  is  a 
little  difficult  to  see  how  the  actual  cost  of  a 
war  against  the  greatest  Empire  of  history,  with 
the  greatest  fleet  of  history,  with  the  greatest 
naval  traditions  of  history  behind  it,   is  going 
to  leave  much  change  out  of  a  thousand  millions — 
in  any  case  not  enough  to  make  attack  worth 
a  government's  while  as  a  business  proposition. 
Yet  the  public  man  who  defended  this  thesis  was 
described   by   a   Liberal  journal   as   the  *'most 
influential  man  in  England,  whether  we  like  it 
or  not."    And  if  such  a  one  talk  in  this  strain, 
what  sense  of  proportion  in  these  matters  can  we 
expect  from  the  mere  man  in  the  street? 

Let  us  make  in  this  matter,  however,  the  largest 
assumption  of  all — that  the  entire  simi  becomes 
available  for  the  German  people  as  a  whole. 
V     Would  it  be  possible  for  them  really  to  profit 

^  by  it? 

I  said  just  now  that  there  is  nothing  inher- 
ently impossible  or,  indeed,  any  great  difficulty 
in  England's  paying  an  indemnity  of  a  thousand 
millions.  But  in  the  present  state  of  national  fiscal 
policies  it  is  as  certain  as  anything  well  could  be 
that  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  German  people 


90 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  receive  anything  more  than  a  fraction  of  it, 
even  though  none  of  it  were  stopped  en  route 
for  expenditure  arising  out  of  the  war.  According 
to  the  economic  doctrine  now  most  in  favour  in  Ger- 
many ^  and  coming  to  be  most  in  favour  in  England, 
German  prosperity  would  suffer  more  by  receiving 
this  money  than  would  English  by  paying  it.  That 
this  fact  has  never  been  brought  into  relief 
shows  how  little  real  attention  the  subject  has 
received. 

Notwithstanding  that  political  economy  is  not 
a  simple  but  a  very  complex  subject,  notwith- 
standing that  the  analogy  as  between  an  indi- 
vidual and  a  nation  is  always  breaking  down, 
it  is  accepted  offhand  that  it  is  as  simple  a  matter 
to  enrich  a  nation  by  paying  over  a  sum  of  money 
like  a  thousand  millions  in  gold  as  it  would  be 
to  enrich  an  individual.  Yet  the  most  summary 
examination  shows  that  the  two  cases  do  not  in 
any  way  go  on  all-fottrs:  in  this,  as  in  so  many 
matters  in  the  domain  of  politics,  the  influence 
of  mere  words  and  metaphors — words  which  are 
generally  inaccurate  and  metaphors  which  mislead 
—  coupled  with  the  sheer  indolent  inattention 
of  the  ''average  sensual  man,"  have  caused  us  to 
accept  without  doubt  or  question  as  absolutely 
identical  in  results  an  operation  which  the  com- 
mon facts  of  workaday  politics  render  absolutely 
different. 

What  is  this  difference  as  between  the  transfer 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


91 


of  wealth  from  one  individual  to  another,  and  from 
one  nation  to  another? 

If  Jones,  the  individual,  could  by  any  means 
whatsoever  induce  his  tradesmen  to  supply  him 
with  bread,  meat,  wine,  clothes,  and  motor-cars 
for  nothing,  Jones  would  be  completely  satisfied, 
and  there  would  never  enter  his  mind  for  an  in- 
stant that  such  was  not  an  absolutely  ideal 
arrangement. 

But     suppose    that    Jones     is     the    Protec- 
tionist State  of  Jonesonia,  is  the  matter  in  any 
way   the  same?     Suppose  that  this  Protection- 
ist State  were  receiving  its  meat,  bread,  wine, 
clothes,  and  motor-cars  from  other  countries  for 
nothing,   or    even  nearly    nothing,   what   would 
the  butchers,  farmers,  bakers,  tailors,  and  motor- 
car makers  of  Jonesonia  have  to  say?     Do  we 
not  know  that  there  would  be  such  a  howl  about 
the  ruin  of  home  industry  that  no  government 
could  stand  the  clamour  for  a  week,  and  do  we  not 
know  that  immediate  steps  would  be  taken  as 
far  as  possible  to  shut  out  this  flood  of  foreign 
goods  poured  in  at  prices  so  immensely  below 
those  at  which  the  home  producers  could  produce 
them?    Do  we  not  know  that  this  influx  of  goods 
for  nothing  would  be  represented  as  a  deep-laid 
plot  on  the  part  of  foreign  nations  to  ruin  the 
trade  of  the  State  of  Jonesonia,  and  that  the 
citizens  of  Jonesonia  would  rise  in  their  wrath 
to  prevent  the  accomplishment  of  such  a  plot? 


Hf|#a 


92 


The  Great  Illusion 


Do  we  not  know  that  this  very  operation  by 
which  foreign  nations  tax  themselves  to  send 
abroad  goods,  not  for  nothing  (that  would  be 
a  crime  at  present  unthinkable),  but  at  below 
cost,  is  an  offence  to  which  we  have  given  the 
scientific  name  of  ^'dumping,"  and  that  when  it 
is  carried  very  far,  as  in  the  case  of  sugar,  even 
Free  Trade  nations  like  Great  Britain  join  inter- 
national conferences  to  prevent  these  gifts  being 
made? 

What,  therefore,  becomes  of  the  analogy  as 
between  Jones  and  a  State?  And  what  shaU  be 
said  of  the  political  economy  of  those  Protec- 
tionists who  calmly  talk  as  though  the  two 
operations  were  absolutely  identical? 

But,  may  object  the  militarist,  when  an  in- 
demnity  is  paid  it  is  not  paid  in  goods  but  in 
gold. 

Really,  ought  not  such  an  objector  to  buy  a  six^ 
penny  text-book  and  get  some  elementary  notion 
of  the  real  process   of  international   exchange? 
Is  it  necessary  at  this  day  to  point  out  that, 
although  the  payment  may  be  made  in  gold, '  unless 

«Such  payment  could  not,  of  course,  be  made  directly  in 
gold;  England  could  not  make  a  payment  of  more  than  about 
fifty  millions  directly.  Germany  might  conceivably  convert  * 
the  credit-equivalent  she  would  receive  from  England  Into 
gold— although  that  would  be  extremely  difficult  and  unprofit- 
able,  and  only  possible  as  long  as  England's  credit  remained  un- 
impaired;  but  whether  the  final  form  of  the  indemnity  were 
gold,  or  its  equivalent  in  credit— paper  money  in  some  form, 
—the  argument  elaborated  in  this  chapter  remains  unafifected! 


The  Indemnity  Futility  93 

that  gold  can  be  exchanged  for  meat,  bread,  fruit, 
clothes,  and  motor-cars  the  man  receiving  it  gets 
nothing  at  all?  Sooner  or  later  the  gold  must 
be  exchanged  for  commodities  or  it  remains  dead 
metal.  In  other  words,  if  we  can  imagine  a 
thousand  millions  of  gold  going  into  a  country 
and  never  coming  out,  that  country  has  not  re- 
ceived any  addition  in  real  wealth.  When  Paris 
was  besieged  by  the  Germans  and  was  starving 
for  want  of  food  and  fuel,  the  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions in  the  Bank  of  France  might  have  been  dis- 
tributed among  its  starving  population  and  none 
of  them  would  have  had  so  much  as  a  mouthf\il 
the  more  of  real  wealth,  unless  the  gold  could  have 
been  taken  outside  the  walls.  And  the  same  is  as 
true  of  a  community  of  twenty  millions  as  of  two.  1 

What  would  have  happened  if  the  millions 
in  the  Bank  of  France  had  been  distributed  among 
the  population  of  Paris?  Food  and  fuel  would 
have  been  as  scarce  as  ever,  and  the  population 
would  have  died  as  rapidly  as  ever  and  gone  as 
hungry  as  ever.  The  only  change  would  have 
been  that  everything  would  have  gone  up  in  price, 
roughly  in  direct  ratio  to  the  addition  which  had 
been  made  to  their  means  of  exchange;  the 
population  would  have  had  more  money  corre- 
sponding to  the  rise  of  those  prices,  but  general 
comfort  would  have  been  exactly  what  it  was 
before.  And  this,  indeed,  is  exactly  what  takes 
place  when  a  Protectionist  nation  receives  an  in- 


94 


The  Great  Illusion 


demnity  of  a  large  amount  of  gold.  One  of  two 
things  happens:  either  the  gold  is  exchanged  for 
real  wealth  with  other  nations,  in  which  case  the 
greatly  increased  inports  compete  directly  with 
the  home  producers;  or  the  money  is  kei)t  within 
the  frontiers  and  is  not  exchanged  for  real  wealth 
from  abroad,  and  prices  inevitably  rise,  in  which 
case  the  situation,  as  just  illustrated  in  the  case  of 
Paris  and  the  siege,  is  repeated.  There  is,  however, 
as  compared  with  other  nations,  a  further  effect : 
the  rise  in  price  of  all  commodities  hampers 
the  receiving  nation  in  selling  those  commodities 
in  the  neutral  markets  of  the  world,  especially 
as  the  loss  of  so  large  a  sum  by  the  vanquished 
nation  has  just  the  inverse  effect  of  cheapening 
prices,  and  therefore  enabling  that  nation  to 
compete  on  better  terms  with  the  conqueror  in 
neutral  markets.  The  dilemma,  as  stated  above, 
is  clear  and  simple,  and  I  challenge  any  economist 
to  show  any  real  escape  therefrom.  Of  two  things 
one  happens :  either  the  indemnity  is  paid  in  real 
wealth  (commodities)  directly  or  indirectly,  the 
result  which  the  Protectionist  regards  as  unmiti- 
gatedly  mischievous ;  or  the  gold  remains  within  the 
frontiers,  in  which  case  there  is  no  increase  of  real 
wealth  among  the  community,  and  prices  rise,  so 
that  the  effect  of  the  extra  amount  of  gold  in 
circulation  is  nullified  by  its  lower  purchasing 
power.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  the 
country    paying    the    indemnity   certainly    does 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


95 


1 


lose  that  amount  of  wealth,  because  in  order  to 
obtain  the  gold  she  must  get  it  from  other  coun- 
tries, giving  real  wealth  in  exchange;  but  what  is 
equally  certain  is  that  the  country  receiving  such 
money  receives  it  either  in  the  form  of  real  wealth, 
which  constitutes  a  serious  competition  to  their 
own  manufacturers  and  traders,  and  constitutes 
in  the  terms  of  the  Protectionist  creed  a  grievous 
wrong,  or  it  has  the  simple  effect  of  raising  prices, 
in  which  case  the  commimity  do  not  receive  any 
addition  to  their  real  wealth.     The  difficulty  in 
the  case  of  a  large  indemnity  is  not  so  much  the 
payment   by   the   vanquished   as   the   receiving 
by  the  victor. 

How  far  does  the  history  of  the  period  1870- 
1880 — ^the  period,  that  is,  dtiring  which  the  war 
indemnity  was  paid  by  France  and  spent  by 
Germany^ — ^bear  out  the  apparent  paradox  just 
indicated?  Preposterous  as  the  thing  may  seem, 
it  bears  it  out  to  the  last  detail,  and  the  matter 
is  worth  a  little  careful  examination. 

The  decade  from  1 870-1 880  was  for  France  a 
great  recuperative  period,  and  for  Germany,  after 
a  boom  in  1872,  one  of  great  depression.  No 
less  an  authority  than  Bismarck  himself  testifies 
to  the  double  fact.  We  know  that  Bismarck's 
life  was  clouded  by  watching  what  appeared  to 

« I  am  aware  that  part  of  the  indemnity  remained  in  the  fort- 
ress of  Spandau,  but  only  a  small  part.  The  bulk  was  spent  in 
the  period  indicated. 


96 


The  Great  Illusion 


him  an  absurd  miracle:  the  regeneration  of  Prance 
after  the  war  taking  place  more  rapidly  and  more 
completely  than  the  regeneration  in  Germany, 
to  such  an  extent  that  in  introducing  his  Pro- 
tectionist Bill  in  1879  he  declared  that  Germany 
was  "slowly  bleeding  to  death,"  and  that  if  the 
present  process  were  continued  she  would  find 
herself  ruined.  Speaking  in  the  Reichstag  on 
May  2,  1879,  Bismarck  said: 

We  see  that  France  manages  to  support  the  present 
difficult  business  situation  of  the  civilized  world  better 
than  we  do;  that  her  Budget  has  increased  since  1871 
by  a  milliard  and  a  half,  and  that  thanks  not  only  to 
loans;  we  see  that  she  has  more  resotuces  than  Ger- 
many, and  that,  in  short,  over  there  they  complain 
less  of  bad  times. 

And  in  a  speech  two  years  later  (Nov.  29, 
1 881)  he  returns  to  the  same  idea: 

It  was  towards  1877  that  I  was  first  struck  with  the 
general  and  growing  distress  in  Germany  as  compared 
with  France.  I  saw  furnaces  banked,  the  standard 
of  well-being  reduced,  and  the  general  position  of 
workmen  becoming  worse,  and  business  as  a  whole 
terribly  bad. 

In  the  book  from  which  these  extracts  are  taken' 
the  author  writes  as  an  introduction  to  Bismarck's 
speeches : 

« Die  Wirtschafts  Finann  und  Sozialreform  im  Deutscken  Rtich, 
Leipzig,  1882. 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


97 


Trade  and  industry  were  in  a  miserable  condition. 
Thousands  of  workmen  were  without  employment, 
and  in  the  winter  of  1876-7  unemployment  took  great 
proportions  and  soup-kitchens  and  State  workshops 
had  to  be  established. 

Every  author  who  deals  with  this  period  seems 
to  tell  the  same  tale.  "If  only  we  could  get 
back  to  the  general  position  of  things  before  the 
war,"  says  M.  Block  in  1879.  "But  salaries 
diminish  and  prices  go  up.*'^ 

In  examining  the  effect  which  must  follow  the 
payment  of  a  large  sum  of  money  by  one  country 
to   another,  we  saw  that  either  goods  must  be 
imported  by  the  nation  receiving  the  indemnity 
to  compete  with  those  produced  at  home;  or  the 
gold  must  be  kept  at  home  and  prices  rise  and  so 
hamper  exportation;  in  the  case  of  the  country  los- 
ing the  gold,  prices  must  fall  and  exports  rise.  That 
this,  in  varying  degrees,  is  precisely  what  did  take 
place  after   the  payment   of  the  indemnity  we 
have  ample  confirmation.     The  German  econo- 
mist Max  Wirth  (Geschichte  der  Handelskrisen) 
expresses  in  1874  his  astonishment  at  France's 
financial    and   industrial   recovery:    "The   most 
striking   example  of   the    economic  force  of  the 
country  is  shown  by  the  exports,  which  rose  im- 
mediately after  the  signature   of   peace,  despite 
a  war  which  swallowed  a  hundred  thousand  lives 

•  "La  Crise  &onomique,"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  March  15, 
1879. 
f 


I 


98 


The  Great  Illusion 


and  more  than  ten  miUiards  (four  hundred  million 
sterling)/'  A  similar  conclusion  is  drawn  by  Pro- 
fessor Biermer  {Furst  Bismarck  ah  Volnswort), 
who  indicates  that  the  Protectionist  movement 
in  1879  was  in  large  part  due  to  the  result  of  the 
payment  of  the  indemnity,  a  view  which  is  con- 
firmed by  Maurice  Block,  who  adds: 

The  five  milliards  provoked  a  rapid  increase  in 
imports,  giving  rise  to  extravagance,  and  as  soon  as 
the  effect  of  the  expenditure  of  the  money  had  passed 
there  was  a  slackening.  Then  followed  a  fall  in  prices, 
which  has  led  to  an  increase  in  exports,  which  tendency 
has  continued  since. 

But  the  temporary  stimulus  of  imports— not 
the  result  of  an  increased  capacity  for  consumption 
arrived  at  by  better  trade,  but  merely  the  sheer  ac- 
quisition of  bullion— did  grave  damage  to  German 
industry,  as  we  have  seen,  and  threw  thousands 
of  German  workmen  out  of  employment,  and  it 
was  during  that  decade  that  Germany  suffered 
the   worst   financial   crisis   experienced   by   any 
country  in  Europe.     At  the  very  time  that  the 
French  millions  were  raining  in  upon  Germany, 
(1873),  she  was  suffering  from  a  grave  financial 
crisis,  and  so  little  effect  did  the  transfer  of  the 
money  have  upon  trade  and  finance  in  general 
that  twelve  months  after  the  payment  of  the 
last   of   the  indemnity   we  find  the   bank  rate 
higher  in  BerUn  than  in  Paris,  and,  as  was  shown 


The  Indemnity  Futility 


99 


by  the  German  economist  Soetbeer,  by  the  year 
1878  far  more  money  was  in  circulation  in  France 
than  in  Germany. '  Hans  Blum,  indeed,  directly 
ascribed  the  series  of  crises  between  the  years 
1873  and  1880  to  the  indemnity:  "A  burst  of  pros- 
perity and  then  ruin  for  thousands."  *  Through- 
out the  year  1875  the  bank  rate  in  Paris  was 
uniformly  three  per  cent.  In  Berlin  (Preussische 
Bank,  which  preceded  the  Reichs  Bank)  it  varied 
from  four  to  six  per  cent.  A  like  difference 
is  reflected  also  by  the  fact  that  between  the 
years  1872  and  1877  the  deposits  in  the  State 
savings  banks  in  Germany  actually  fell  by 
roughly  twenty  per  cent.,  while  in  the  same 
period  the  French  deposits  increased  about  twenty 
per  cent. 

It  will  be  replied  that  after  the  first  decade 
Germany's  trade  has  shown  an  expansion  which 
has  not  been  shown  by  that  of  France.  Those  who 
are  hypnotized  by  this  fact  quietly  ignore  alto- 
gether one  great  fact  which  has  marked  both 
France  and  Germany,  not  since  the  war,  but 
dtiring  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
that  fact  is  that  the  population  of  France,  from 
causes  in  no  way  connected  with  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  since  the  tendency  was  a  pro- 
noimced  one  for  fifty  years  before,  is  practically 

•Maurice  Block,  "La  Crise  Economique/'  Rgvue  des  Dews 
Mondes,  March  15,  1879. 
2  Das  Deutsche  Reich  tur  Zeit  Bismarcks, 


\ 


100 


The  Great  Illusion 


quite  stationary ;  while  the  population  of  Germany, 
also  for  reasons  in  no  way  connected  with  the 
war,  since  the  fact  was  also  pronounced  half   a 
century   previously,    has   shown   an   abounding 
expansion.     Since  1875  the  population  of  Germany 
has  increased  by  twenty  million  souls.    That  of 
France  has  not  increased  at  all.     Is  it  astonishing 
that  the  labour  of  twenty  million  souls  as  against 
nil  makes  some  stir  in  the  industrial  world,  and 
is  it  not  evident  that  the  necessity  of  earning 
a  livelihood  for  this  increasing  poptilation  gives 
to  German  industry  an  expansion  outside  the 
limits  of  her  territory  which  cannot  be  looked 
for  in  the  case  of  nations  whose  social  energies 
are  not  met  with  any  such  problem?     There  is 
this  moreover  to  be  borne  in  mind:  Germany 
has  secured  her  foreign  trade  on  what  are  in 
the  terms  of  the  relative  comfort  of  her  people 
hard  conditions.       In  other  words,  she  has  se- 
cured that  trade  by  cutting  profits  in  the  way 
that  a  business  fighting  desperately  for  life  will 
cut  profits  in  order  to  secure  orders  and  will 
make  sacrifices  that  the  comfortable  business  man 
will  not  do.     Notwithstanding  that  France  has 
made  no  sensational  splash  in  foreign  trade  since 
the  war,  the  standard  of    comfort  among   her 
people  has  been  rising  steadily  and  is  without 
doubt  generally  higher  to-day  than  is  that  of  the 
German  people.    This  higher  standard  of  comfort 
is   reflected   in   her  financial   situation.    While 


The  Indemnity  Futility  loi 

German  Three  Per  Cents  are  quoted  at  82,  French 
Rentes  are  quoted  at  98,  and  while  the  financial 
situation  of  Germany  is  at  times  notoriously 
bad,  that  of  France  is,  generally  speaking,  the 
soimdest  in  Europe.  The  French  people  have 
more  invested  wealth,  more  savings;  and  it  is 
Germany,  the  victor,  which  is  to-day  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  suppliant  in  regard  to  France,  and  it  is 
revealing  no  diplomatic  secrets  to  say  that  for 
many  years  now  Germany  has  been  employing 
all  the  wiles  of  her  diplomacy  to  obtain  the  official 
recognition  of  German  securities  on  the  French 
Bourses.  France  financially  has,  in  a  very  real 
sense,  the  whip  hand. 

Do  not  these  facts  and  others  like  them  confirm 
therefore  the  conclusion  that  in  the  conditions  of 
the  modem  world  it  is  economically  impossible 
for  a  great  nation,  especially  if  that  great  nation 
be  a  Protectionist  one,  to  realize  any  benefit 
from  receiving  a  large  indemnity?  The  nominal 
transfer  of  the  money  may  indeed  be  made,  but 
the  social,  commercial,  financial  benefit  must 
necessarily,  given  the  complications  of  our 
economy,  be  fictitious. 

It  may  be  argued  that  if  the  foregoing  is  true 
of  an  indemnity,  it  is  equally  true  of  a  foreign 
loan  received  by  a  Protectionist  State,  and  that 
therefore  the  millions  that  Russia  receives  from 
abroad  in  this  way  do  not  avail  her  anything. 
Russia  has,  however,  large  foreign  commitments 


I02 


The  Great  Illusion 


for  the  payment  of  interest  on  old  loans,  and  much 
of  the  money  raised  abroad  is  returned  abroad  in 
that  form.    Then  much  of  her  war  material  is 
purchased   abroad,    so   that   she   has   generally 
sufficiently  large  payments  to  make  abroad  to 
avoid  the  financial  stultification  which  the  receipt 
of  large  sums  would  involve  were  it  to  be  '*  spent 
in  the  country.**     That  Russia  does  not  alto- 
gether escape  such  stultification  is  shown  by  the 
facts,  of  which  we  are  assured  by  Mr.  Dillon,  that 
the  general  rise  in  wages  which  has  taken  place 
in  recent  years  in  Russia  has  been  more  than 
nvdlified  by  the  increased  cost  of  living.     It  should 
be  noted,  moreover,  that  the  steady  increase  of 
normal,  honest  revenue  from  abroad  as  the  result 
of  foreign  investment  or  foreign  trading  is  not 
in  the  same  category  economically  as  an  indem- 
nity secured  by  war.     In  the  first  case  the  in- 
crease of  wealth  is  real,  in  the  second  fictitious, 
or  evanescent,   because   in  the   first  a    market 
has    been    improved    or    created,    and    in   the 
second  injured  or  destroyed.     If  we  were  send- 
ing   a   hundred    milhons    of    goods    a    year    to 
Germany   in    the   ordinary    course    of   ordinary 
business,  it  would  mean  that  German  industry 
had  created  a  market  for  those  goods  by  having 
previously  found  a  market;  if  the  amount  were 
sent  as  part  of  a  war  indemnity,  it  would  mean 
that  Germany  had  not  expanded  its  buying  ca- 
pacity that  much  by  general  commercial  activity, 


The  Indemnity  Futility  103 

and  that  it  could  only  absorb  those  goods  by 
depriving  its  own  producers  of  the  trade. 

I  have  not  complicated  this  exposition  by  the 
question  of  a  gold  reserve  financially,  as  that  does 
not,  properly  speaking,  bear  on  the  question. 
Some  of  the  coimtries  with  the  largest  gold  reserve 
have  the  worst  finance — e,  g,,  Germany  has  a 
larger  gold  reserve  than  England,  which  has  one 
of  the  smallest  in  Europe.  This  does  not  pre- 
vent Germany  being  a  large  borrower  from 
England,  and  England  being  the  banker  of  the 
universe.  Some  of  the  sotmdest  banking  and  the 
largest  trade  in  the  world  are  done  on  the  small- 
est gold  reserve.  Where  banking  is  soimd  and 
conservative,  gold  in  large  part  can  be  dispensed 
with.  To  add  one  final  word  as  to  anticipated 
criticism:  I  do  not  urge  the  absurdity  that  it  is 
impossible  for  one  government  to  make  a  payment 
of  a  large  simi  of  money  to  another;  or  for  the 
government  receiving  it  to  benefit  thereby:  but 
that  the  population  as  a  whole  of  any  nation 
receiving  a  large  indemnity  must  suffer  from  any 
disturbance  of  the  credit  of  the  paying  nation; 
that  if  the  Protectionist  doctrine  is  just  they  must 
suffer  great  disadvantage  from  the  receipt  of  wealth 
which  has  not  employed  the  home  population; 
from  the  rise  of  prices  which  checks  their  exports; 
that  these  are  factors  which  must  be  taken  into 
consideration  in  estimating  the  real  advantage  to 


104 


The  Great  Illusion 


the  general  population  of  any  country  which  may 
succeed  in  extorting  bullion  from  another  as  war 
plunder. 

The  following,  part  of  a  reply  to  an  article 
which  appeared  in  the  Daily  Mail,  professing  to 
show  that  Germany  had  made  a  profit  of  two 
hundred  millions  out  of  the  war,  may  give  an  idea 
of  the  real  balance  sheet : 

*'In  arriving  at  this  balance,  my  critic,  like  the 
company-promoting  genius   who  promises  you   150 
per  cent,  for  your  money,  leaves  so  much  out  of  the 
account.     Here  are  a  few  items  not  considered:    For 
the  purposes  and  period  of  the  war  Germany  increased 
her  peace  army  by  five  htmdred  and  thirty  thousand 
men,  and  kept  them  from  civil  occupations  for  over 
nine  months;  consequent  losses,  at  least  thirty  million 
sterling.     Some  proportion  of  the  families  of  forty 
thousand  killed,  and  some,  at  least,  of  the  eighty 
thousand  wounded,  were  thrown  upon  the  support  of 
relatives,  the  pensions  only  covering  a  small  fraction. 
Economists  of  repute,  like  De  Molinari,  have  placed 
the  cost  under  this  head  alone  at  eighty  million  sterling. 
The  increase  in  the  French  army  which  took  place 
immediately  after  the  war,  and  as  the  direct  result 
thereof,  compelled  Germany  to  increase  her  army  by 
at  least  one  hundred  thousand  men,  and  this  increase 
has  been  maintained  for  forty  years.     The  expenditure 
throughout  amounts  to  at  least  two  hundred  million 
sterling.     We  are  already  as  much  on  the  debit  side 
as  my  critic  placed  the  result  on  the  credit  side,  and 
I  have  not  enumerated  half  the  items  yet— e.g.,  loss 


The  Indemnity  Futility  105 

of  German  trade  during  the  war,  loss  of  markets  for 
Germany  involved  in  the  destruction  of  so  many 
French  lives  and  so  much  French  wealth;  loss  from 
the  general  disturbance  throughout  Europe. 

"But  it  is  absurd  to  bring  figiu-es  to  bear  on  such 
a  system  of  bookkeeping  as  that  adopted  by  my  critic. 
Germany  had  several  years*  preparation  for  the  war, 
and  has  had,  as  the  direct  result  thereof,  and  as  an 
integral  part  of  the  general  war  system  which  her  own 
policy  supports,  certain  obligations  during  forty  years. 
All  this  is  ignored.  Just  note  how  the  same  principle 
would  work  if  applied  in  ordinary  commercial  matters  : 
because,  for  instance,  on  an  estate  the  actual  harvest 
only  takes  a  fortnight,  you  disregard  altogether  the 
working  expenses  for  the  remaining  fifty  weeks  of  the 
year,  charge  only  the  actual  cost  of  the  harvest  (and 
not  all  of  that) ,  deduct  this  from  the  gross  proceeds  of 
the  crops,  and  call  the  result  '  profit  * !  Such  '  finance ' 
is  really  luminous.  AppHed  by  the  ordinary  business 
man,  it  would  in  an  incredibly  short  time  put  his 
business  in  the  bankruptcy  court  and  himself  in  gaol." 


CHAPTER  VII 

HOW  COLONIES  ARE  OWNED 

The  vagueness  of  our  conceptions  of  statecraft — How  England 
"owns"  Colonies — Some  little-recognized  facts — ^Why  for- 
eigners could  not  fight  England  for  her  self-governing 
Colonies — She  does  not  "own"  them,  since  they  are  masters 
of  their  own  destiny — ^The  paradox  of  conquest:  England 
in  a  worse  position  in  regard  to  her  own  Colonies  than  in 
r^ard  to  foreign  nations — Her  experience  as  the  oldest 
and  most  practised  colonizer  in  history — Colonies  not  a 
source  of  fiscal  profit — Could  Germany  hope  to  do  better? 
— If  not,  inconceivable  she  should  fight  for  sake  of  making 
hopeless  experiment. 

THE  foregoing  disposes  of  the  first  six  of  the 
seven  propositions  outlined  in  Chapter  III. 
There  remains  the  seventh,  dealing  with  the 
notion  that  in  some  way  Great  Britain's  security 
and  prosperity  would  be  threatened  by  a  foreign 
nation  "taking  her  Colonies  from  her," — a  thing 
which  we  are  assured  our  rivals  are  burning  to  do, 
as  it  would  involve  the  **  breaking  up  of  the 
British  Empire'*  to  their  advantage. 

Let  us  try  to  read  some  meaning  into  a  phrase 
which,  however  childish  it  may  appear  on  analysis, 
is  very  conmionly  in  the  mouths  of  those  who 

are  responsible  for  our  political  ideas. 

106 


I 


.J 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        107 

I  have  stated  the  case  thus : 

No  foreign  nation  could  gain  any  advantage 
by  the  conquest  of  the  British  Colonies,  and 
Great  Britain  could  not  suffer  material  damage 
by  their  loss,  however  much  such  loss  would  be 
regretted  on  sentimental  grounds,  and  as  render- 
ing less  easy  certain  useful  social  co-operation 
between  kindred  peoples.  For  the  British  Col- 
onies are,  in  fact,  independent  nations  in  alliance 
with  the  Mother  Country,  to  whom  they  are  no 
source  of  tribute  or  economic  profit,  their  economic 
relations  being  settled  not  by  the  Mother  Country, 
but  by  the  Colonies.  Economically,  England 
would  gain  by  their  formal  separation,  since  she 
would  be  relieved  of  the  cost  of  their  defence. 
Their  loss,  involving,  therefore,  no  change  in 
economic  fact  (beyond  saving  the  Mother  Country 
the  cost  of  their  defence),  could  not  involve  the 
ruin  of  the  Empire  and  the  starvation  of  the 
Mother  Country,  as  those  who  commonly  treat 
of  such  a  contingency  are  apt  to  aver.  As  Eng- 
land is  not  able  to  exact  tribute  or  economic 
advantage,  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  other 
country,  necessarily  less  experienced  in  colonial 
management,  would  be  able  to  succeed  where 
England  had  failed,  especially  in  view  of  the  past 
history  of  the  Spanish,  Portuguese,  French,  and 
British  Colonial  Empires.  This  history  also 
demonstrates  that  the  position  of  Crown  Colonies 
in  the  respect  which  we  are  considering  is  not 


1 


io8 


The  Great  Illusion 


sensibly  different  from  that  of  the  self-governing 
ones.  It  is  not  to  be  presumed,  therefore,  that 
any  European  nation  would  attempt  the  des- 
perately expensive  business  of  the  conquest  of 
England  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  experiment 
with  her  Colonies  which  all  colonial  history 
shows  to  be  doomed  to  failure. 

What  are  the  facts?  Great  Britain  is  the  most 
successful  colonizing  nation  in  the  world,  and 
the  policy  into  which  her  experience  has  driven 
her  is  that  outlined  by  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas,  one  of  the 
greatest  authorities  on  colonial  questions.  He 
writes,  speaking  of  the  history  of  the  British 
Colonies  on  the  American  continent,  thus: 

It  was  seen — ^but  it  might  not  have  been  seen  had 
the  United  States  not  won  their  independence— that 
EngUsh  colonists,  Hke  Greek  colonies  of  old,  go  out 
on  terms  of  being  equal,  not  subordinate,  to  those 
who  are  left  behind ;  that  when  they  have  effectively 
planted  another  and  a  distant  land,  they  must,  within 
the  widest  limits,  be  left  to  rule  themselves;  that, 
whether  they  are  right,  or  whether  they  are  wrong,— 
more,  perhaps,  when  they  are  wrong  than  when  they 
are  right, — they  cannot  be  made  amenable  by  force; 
that  mutual  good  feeling,  community  of  interest,  and 
abstention  from  pressing  rightf \il  claims  to  their  logical 
conclusion  can  alone  hold  together  a  true  Colonial 
Empire. 

But  what  in  the  name  of  common-sense  is  the 
advantage  of  conquering  them  if  the  only  policy 


^ 
4 


I 


-I 
t 
k 
I 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        109 

is  to  let  them  do  as  they  like,  "whether  they 
are  right  or  wrong, — ^more,  perhaps,  when  they  are 
wrong  than  when  they  are  right"?  And  what 
avails  it  to  conquer  them  if  they  cannot  be  made 
amenable  to  force?  Surely  this  makes  the 
whole  thing  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  Were  a 
Power  like  Germany  to  use  force  to  conquer 
colonies,  she  would  find  out  that  they  were  not 
amenable  to  force,  and  that  the  only  working 
policy  was  to  let  them  do  exactly  as  they  did 
before  she  conquered  them,  and  to  allow  them, 
if  they  chose — and  many  of  the  British  Colonies 
do  so  choose — ^to  treat  the  Mother  Country 
absolutely  as  a  foreign  country.  There  has 
recently  been  going  on  in  Canada  a  discussion 
as  to  the  position  which  that  Dominion  should 
hold  with  reference  to  the  British  in  the  event 
of  war,  and  I  take  from  a  French-Canadian 
paper  (La  Presse,  March  27,  1909)  a  passage 
which  is  quoted  with  approval  by  an  English- 
Canadian  publication.    It  is  as  follows: 

If,  after  the  organization  of  a  Canadian  Navy, 
England  finds  herself  at  war  with  a  foreign  Power,  if 
that  war  is  a  just  one,  and  Canada  considers  it  to  be 
so,  England  may  always  rely  upon  the  eager  support 
of  Canadian  soldiers  and  marines.  But  we  must 
always  be  free  to  give  or  to  refuse  this  support. 

Could  a  foreign  nation  say  more?  In  what  sense 
does  England  "own"  Canada  when  Canadians 


no 


The  Great  Illusion 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        in 


must  always  be  free  to  give  or  refuse  their  military 
support  to  England;  and  in  what  way  does  Canada 
differ  from  a  foreign  nation  when  England  may 
be  at  war  while  Canada  can  be  at  peace?  Mr. 
Asquith  formally  endorses  this  conception.  On 
August  26,  1909,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  after 
explaining  the  conclusions  of  the  Imperial  Con- 
ference, he  said : 

The  result  was  a  plan  for  so  organising  the  forces 
of  the  Crown,wherever  they  are,  that,  while  preserving 
the  complete  autonomy  of  each  Dominion,  should  these 
Dominions  desire  to  assist  in  the  defence  of  the  Empire 
in  a  real  emergency,  their  forces  could  be  rapidly  com- 
bined into  one  homogeneous  Imperial  Army.' 

This  shows  clearly  that  no  Dominion  is  held 
to  be  bound  by  virtue  of  its  allegiance  to  the 
Sovereign  of  the  British  Empire  to  place  its 
forces  at  his  disposition,  no  matter  how  real  may 

» The  New  York  papers  of  November  16,  1909,  report  the 
following  from  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  in  the  Dominion  Parliament 
during  the  debate  on  the  Canadian  navy:  "My   honourable 
friend  [Mr.  Monk]  has  blamed  the  Government   for  propos- 
ing to  begin  the  organization  of  a  naval   force.     What  is  the 
object  of  that  force— what  is  the  occasion?      We  never  had 
one  before,  he  says.     I  remember  the  time  when  we  had  no 
railways,  no  public-school  system.     And  if  now   we  have  to 
organize  a  naval  force,  it  is  btouse  we  are  growing  as  a  nation— 
it  is  the  penalty  of  being  a  nation.     I  know  of  no  nation  having 
a  seacoast  of  its  own  which  has  no  navy,  except  Norway,  but 
Norway  will  never  tempt  the  invader.     Canada  has  its  coal 
mines,  its  gold-mines,  its  wheat-fields,  and  its  vast  wealth  may 
offer  a  temptation  to  the  invader. " 


be  the  emergency.  If  it  should  not  desire  so  to 
do,  it  is  free  to  refuse  so  to  do.  This  is  to  convert 
the  British  Empire  into  a  loose  alliance  of  inde- 
pendent Sovereign  States,  which  are  not  even 
bound  to  help  each  other  in  case  of  war.  The 
alliance  between  Austria  and  Germany  is  far 
more  stringent  than  the  tie  which  unites  for 
purposes  of  war  the  component  parts  of  the 
British  Empire. 

One  critic,  commenting  on  this,  says: 

Whatever  language  is  used  to  describe  this  new 
movement  of  Imperial  defence,  it  is  virtually  one  more 
step  towards  complete  national  independence  on  the 
part  of  the  Colonies.  For  not  only  will  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  assumption  of  this  task  of  self-defence  feed 
with  new  vigour  the  spirit  of  nationality,  it  will  entail 
the  further  power  of  full  control  over  foreign  relations. 
This  has  already  been  virtually  admitted  in  the  case 
of  Canada,  now  entitled  to  a  determinant  voice  in  all 
treaties  or  other  engagements  in  which  her  interests 
are  especially  involved.  The  extension  of  this  right 
to  the  other  colonial  nations  may  be  taken  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Home  rule  in  national  defence  thus 
established  reduces  the  Imperial  connection  to  its 
thinnest  terms.' 

« The  recent  tariff  negotiations  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States  were  carried  on  between  Ottawa  and  Wash- 
ington without  the  intervention  of  London.  Sir  Wilfrid 
Laurier,  in  a  speech  recently  at  Humbolt,  said:  "But  while 
we  acknowledge  the  sovereignty  of  the  British  King,  we  say 


I 

I 


112 


The  Great  Illusion 


Is  Germany  really  likely  to  fight  England  for  the 
** ownership'*  of  Colonies  which  are  even  now  in 
reality  independent,  and  might  conceivably  at 
the  outbreak  of  war  become  so  in  name  as  well? 
Facts  of  very  recent  English  history  have  estab- 
lished quite  incontrovertibly  this  ridiculous  para- 
dox :  England  has  more  influence — that  is  to  say,  a 
freer  opportimity  of  enforcing  her  point  of  view — 
with  foreign  nations  than  with  her  own  Colonies. 
Indeed,  does  not  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas's  statement  that 
"whether  they  are  right  or  wrong — still  more, 
perhaps,  when  they  are  wrong,"  they  must  be 
left  alone,  necessarily  mean  that  our  position 
with  the  Colonies  is  weaker  than  our  position 
with  foreign  nations?  In  the  present  state  of 
international  feeling  Englishmen  would  never 
dream  of  advocating  submission  to  foreign  na- 
tions when  they  are  wrong.  Recent  history  is 
illuminating  on  this  point. 

What  were  the  larger  motives  that  pushed 
England  into  war  with  the  Dutch  Republics?  It 
was  to  vindicate  the  supremacy  of  the  British 
race  in  South  Africa,  to  enforce  British  ideals  as 
against  Boer  ideals,  to  secure  the  rights  of  British 
Indians  and  other  British  subjects,  to  protect 
the  native  against  Boer  oppression,  to  take  the 
government  of  the  country  generally  from  a 
people  whom    such    authorities   as   Doyle   and 


that  the  part  Canada  shall  play  is  not  the  part  of  a  dependency, 
but  the  part  of  a  nation. " 


I 


^ 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned 


113 


many  of  those  who  were  loudest  in  their  advocacy 
of  the  war  described  as  "inherently  incapable 
of  civiHzation. "     What,  however,  is  the  outcome 
of  spending  two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  upon 
the  accomplishment  of  these  objects?    The  pre- 
sent Government  of  the  Transvaal  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  Boer  party.     England  has  achieved  the 
union  of  South  Africa  in  which  the  Boer  element 
is   predominant.     Britain   has   enforced   against 
the  British  Indian  in  the  Transvaal  and  Natal 
the  same  Boer  regulations  which  were  one  of 
our  grievances  before  the  war,  and  the  Houses 
of  ParHament  have  just  ratified  an  Act  of  Union 
in  which  the  Boer  attitude  with  reference  to  the 
native    is    codified    and    made   permanent.     Sir 
Charles  Dilke,  in  the  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  South  African  Bill,  made  this 
quite  clear.     He  said  : 

The  old  British  principle  in  South  Africa,  as  dis- 
tinct  from  the  Boer  principle,  in  regard  to  the 
treatment  of  natives  was  equal  rights  for  all  civil- 
ized men.  At  the  beginning  of  the  South  African 
War  the  country  was  told  that  one  of  its  main 
objects,  and  certainly  that  the  one  predominant 
factor  m  any  treaty  of  peace,  would  be  the  assertion 
of  the  Bntish  principle  as  against  the  Boer  principle. 
Now,  the  Boer  principle  dominates  throughout  the 
whole  of  South  Africa. 

Mr.    Asquith,    as    representing    the    British 
Government,  admitted  that  this  was  the  case, 


114 


The  Great  Illusion 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        115 


and  that  "the  opinion  of  this  country  is  al- 
most unanimous  in  objecting  to  the  colour 
bar  in  the  Union  Parliament."  He  went  on  to 
say  that  '*the  opinion  of  the  British  Government 
and  the  opinion  of  the  British  people  must  not 
be  allowed  to  lead  to  any  interference  with  a 
self-governing  Colony."  So  that,  having  ex- 
pended in  the  conquest  of  the  Transvaal  a  greater 
sum  than  Germany  exacted  from  France  at  the 
close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  England  has 
not  even  the  right  to  enforce  her  views  on  those 
very  subjects  which  constituted  the  motive  of 
going  to  war.  Again,  it  is  to  this  paradox  these 
conquests  lead.    As  one  critic  declares: 

The  war  has  not  made  the  Union,  but  it  has  made 
Dutch  mastery  within  the  Union.     If  Lord  Milner 
had  looked  before  he  leaped  ten  years  ago,  he  wotild 
have  recognized  that  the  surest  way  to  render  certain 
for  the  future  that  **  dominion  of  Af rikanderdom " 
which  he  hated  was  to  convert  the  two  Republics  by 
force  into  two  self-governing  British  Colonies.     Those 
who,  ten  years  ago,  insisted  with  so  much  assurance 
upon  the  inevitability  of  war  in  South  Africa  failed 
to  recognize  that  the  sequel  of  the  war  was  equally 
inevitable.    That  the  most  redoubtable  Boer  generals, 
who  eight  years  ago  were  in  the  field  against  our 
troops,  should  now  be  in  London  imposing  on  the 
British  Government  the  terms  of  a  national  Constitu- 
tion which  will  make  them  and  their  allies  in  the 
Cape  the  rulers  of  a  virtually  independent  South 


Africa  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  brightest  humours  of 
modern  history. 

The  National  Review,  speaking  of  the  South 
African  Union  Bill,  remarks,  not  without  jus- 
tice: 

Podsnap  and  Pecksniff  were  conspicuous  through- 
out the  debates.  Government  and  Opposition  vied 
with  one  another  in  hailing  the  millennium  which 
must  inevitably  follow  the  adoption  of  a  Constitution 
placing  the  British  and  the  natives  permanently  under 
the  heel  of  the  Boers.  Every  tragedy  has  its  comic 
aspect,  and  there  is  a  certain  grim  humour  in  our 
sentimental,  pro-native  Radical  Parliament  passing  a 
great  measure  of  local  self-government  with  a  rigid 
colour  bar  virtually  excluding  the  natives,  who  con- 
stitute at  least  four  fifths  of  the  population  of  South 
Africa,  from  all  practical  share  in  its  government, 
either  now  or  hereafter.  We  can  imagine  what  would 
have  been  said  by  the  Opposition  had  a  Unionist 
Government  proposed  to  hand  over  the  population 
of  South  Africa  to  an  "insignificant  white  oligarchy." 
The  Radical  Party  would  have  seethed  with  in- 
dignation. But  their  delight  at  seeing  Englishmen 
under  the  Boer  harrow  has  completely  reconciled 
them  to  the  abandonment  of  their  native  clientele. 

Just  recently  there  was  in  London  a  deputation 
from  the  British  Indians  in  the  Transvaal  point- 
ing out  that  the  regulations  there  deprive  them 
of  the  ordinary  rights  of  British  citizens.  The 
British  Government  has  informed  them  that  the 


Ii6 


The  Great  Illusion 


Transvaal  being  a  self-governing  Colony,  the  Im- 
perial Government  can  do  nothing  for  them." 
Now  it  will  not  be  forgotten  that,  at  a  time 
when  England  was  quarrelling  with  Paul  Kruger, 
one  of  the  liveliest  of  her  grievances  was  the 
treatment  of  British  Indians.  Having  conquered 
Kruger,  now  '* owning"  his  coimtry,  does  Great 
Britain  act  as  she  was  trying  to  compel  Paul 
Kruger  as  a  foreign  ruler  to  act?  She  does  not. 
She  (or  rather  the  responsible  Government  of  the 

« A  bill  has  been  introduced  into  the  Indian  Legislative  Council 
enabling  the  Government  to  prohibit  emigration  to  any  country 
where  the  treatment  accorded  to  British  Indian  subjects  was 
not  such  as  met  with  the  approval  of  the  Governor-General. 
"As  just  treatment  for  free  Indians  has  not  been  secured," 
says  the  Times,  "prohibition  will  undoubtedly  be  applied  against 
Natal  unless  the  position  of  free  Indians  there  is  ameliorated. 
The  position  in  Natal  becomes  more  difficult  as  the  number  of 
free  Indians  increases;  hence,  it  is  desirable  to  stop  emigration 
completely,  though  Natal  may  stave  off  prohibition  by  amelior- 
ating the  treatment  of  free  Indians.  A  strong  body  of  educated 
opinion  desires  the  cessation  of  indentured  emigration,  because 
it  injures  free  Indians.  The  immediate  effect  of  prohibition 
on  the  districts  from  which  the  emigrants  are  mainly  drawn  may 
be  severe. " 

Concerning  some  correspondence  on  the  same  subject  appear- 
ing in  the  weekly  paper  John  Bull,  that  journal  comments  (June 
II,  1910:  "This  is  the  treatment  meted  out  to  a  British  subject 
in  the  Transvaal,  an  Indian  gentleman,  highly  educated,  and  of 
unblemished  character.  Mr.  L.  W.  Ritch,  who  directs  our  atten- 
tion to  this  matter,  and  whose  efforts  on  behalf  of  the  Indians 
in  the  Transvaal  have  been  so  persistent  and  strenuous,  tells 
us  that  he  has  appealed  again  and  again  to  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment to  take  some  effective  steps  to  correct  the  disgraceful 
state  of  things  we  have  described;  but  either  the  power  or  the 
will,  or  both,  would  appear  to  be  lacking." 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        117 


Colony,  with  whom  she  dare  not  interfere,  al- 
though she  was  ready  enough  to  make  represen- 
tations to  Kruger)  simply  and  purely  enforces  his 
own  regulations.  Moreover,  the  Australian  Col- 
onies and  British  Colimibia  have  since  taken  the 
view  with  reference  to  British  Indians  which 
President  Kruger  took,  and  which  view  England 
made  almost  a  casus  belli.  Yet  in  the  case  of  her 
Colonies  she  does  absolutely  nothing.  So  the  pro- 
cess is  this:  The  Government  of  a  foreign  terri- 
tory does  something  which  England  asks  it  to  cease 
doing.  The  refusal  of  the  foreign  Government  con- 
stitutes a  casus  belli.  England  fights,  and  con- 
quers, and  the  territory  in  question  becomes  one 
of  her  Colonies,  and  she  allows  the  Government 
of  that  Colony  to  continue  doing  the  very  thing 
which  constituted,  in  the  case  of  a  foreign  nation, 
a  casus  belli.  What  did  she  undertake  the  war 
of  conquest  for?  Do  we  not  arrive,  therefore, 
at  the  absurdity  I  have  already  indicated — that  a 
nation  is  in  a  worse  position  to  enforce  its  views  in 
its  own  territory — that  is  to  say,  in  its  colonies — 
than  in  foreign  territory  ?  Would  England  submit 
tamely  if  a  foreign  Government  should  exercise 
permanently  gross  oppression  on  an  important 
section  of  her  citizens?  Certainly  she  wovdd 
not.  But  when  the  Government  exercising  that 
oppression  happens  to  be  the  Government  of  her 
own  Colonies  she  does  nothing,  and  a  great  British 
authority  lays  it  down  that,  even  more  when  the 


I 


I 


Ii8 


The  Great  Illusion 


Colonial  Government  is  wrong  than  when  it  is 
right,  must  she  do  nothing,  and  that,  though 
wrong,  the  Colonial  Government  cannot  be  amen- 
able to  force.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  Crown 
Colonies  differ  essentially  in  this  matter  from 
self-governing  Colonies.  Not  only  is  there  an 
irresistible  tendency  for  Crown  Colonies  to 
acquire  the  practical  rights  of  self-governing 
Colonies,  but  it  has  become  a  practical  impossi- 
bility to  disregard  their  special  interests.  Ex- 
perience is  conclusive  on  this  point. 

I  am  not  here  playing  with  words  or  attempt- 
ing to  make  paradoxes.  This  reductio  ad  ah- 
surdum — the  fact  that  when  Britain  owns  a 
territory  she  renounces  the  privilege  of  using 
force  to  ensure  observance  of  her  views — ^is  be- 
coming more  and  more  a  common-place  of  British 
Colonial  Government. 

As  to  the  fiscal  position  of  the  Colonies,  that 
is  precisely  what  their  political  relation  is  in  all 
but  name;  they  are  foreign  nations.  They  erect 
tariffs  against  Great  Britain;  they  exclude  large 
sections  of  British  subjects  absolutely  (prac- 
tically speaking,  no  British  Indian  is  allowed  to 
set  foot  in  Australia,  and  yet  British  India  con- 
stitutes the  greater  part  of  the  British  Empire), 
and  even  against  British  subjects  from  Great 
Britain  vexatious  exclusion  laws  are  enacted. 
Again  the  question  arises :  Could  a  foreign  country 
do  more?     If  fiscal  preference  is  extended  to  Great 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        119 

Britain,  that  preference  is  not  the  result  of 
British  "ownership"  of  the  Colonies,  but  is  the 
free  act  of  the  Colonial  legislators,  and  could 
as  well  be  made  by  any  foreign  nation  desiring 
to  court  closer  fiscal  relations  with  Great  Britain. ' 

Is  it  conceivable  that  Germany,  if  the  real 
relations  between  Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies 
were  imderstood,  would  tmdertake  the  costliest 
war  of  conquest  in  history  in  order  to  acquire 
an  absurd  and  profitless  position,  in  which  she 
could  not  exact  even  the  shadow  of  a  material 
advantage? 

It  may  be  pleaded  that  Germany  might  on  the 
morrow  of  conquest  attempt  to  enforce  a  policy 
which  gave  her  a  material  advantage  in  the 
Colonies,  such  as  Spain  and  Portugal  attempted 
to  ^  create  for  themselves.  But  in  that  case, 
is  it  conceivable  that  Germany,  without  colonial 
experience,  would  be  able  to  enforce  a  policy 
which  Great  Britain  was  obliged  to  abandon 
a  hundred  years  ago?  Is  it  imaginable  that,  if 
Great  Britain  has  been  utterly  imable  to  carry 
out  a  policy  by  which  the  Colonies  shall  pay 

^Britain's  total  over-seas  trade  for  1908  was  1049  millions,  of 
which  784  millions  was  with  foreigners,  and  265  millions  with  her 
own  possessions.  And  while  it  is  true  that  with  some  of  her  Colo- 
nies Britain  has  as  much  as  52  per  cent,  on  their  trade  (e.  g.,  Aus- 
tralia), it  also  happens  that  some  absolutely  foreign  countries  give 
greater  percentage  even  of  trade  with  Britain  than  do  our 
Colonies.  Britain  possesses  38  per  cent,  of  Argentina's  foreign 
trade,  but  only  36  per  cent,  of  Canada's,  although  Canada  has 
recently  given  considerable  preference. 


I20 


The  Great  Illusion 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        121 


anything  resembling  tribute  to  the  Mother 
Country,  Germany,  without  experience,  and  at  an 
enormous  disadvantage  in  the  matter  of  language, 
tradition,  racial  tie,  and  the  rest,  would  be  able 
to  make  such  a  policy  a  success?  Surely,  if  the 
elements  of  this  question  were  in  the  least  under- 
stood in  Germany,  such  a  preposterous  notion 
could  not  be  entertained  for  a  moment. 

There  cannot  be  found  a  single  authority,  from 
Adam  Smith  to  Seeley  (or  to  Joseph  Chamber- 
lain, for  that  matter),  prepared  to  risk  his  re- 
putation by  declaring  that  any  fiscal  arrangement 
constituting  a  monopoly  benefit  for  the  Mother 
Country  can  in  our  day  be  imposed  upon  colonies, 
or  that  any  fiscal  arrangement  can  be  imposed 
upon  any  considerable  colony  of  European  people 
except  by  their  consent  and  co-operation.  And 
fiscal  arrangements  which  are  for  the  benefit 
of  both  parties,  and  are  enforced  by  the  consent 
of  both,  can  be  effected  as  between  any  commun- 
ities, whether  they  stand  in  the  relation  of  Mother 
Country  and  Colony  or  not. 

Yet  so  little  is  the  real  relationship  of  modem 
colonies  understood  that  I  have  heard  it  men- 
tioned in  private  conversation  by  an  EngHsh 
public  man,  whose  position  was  such,  moreover, 
as  to  enable  him  to  give  very  great  effect  to  his 
opinion,  that  one  of  the  motives  pushing  Germany 
to  war  was  the  projected  capture  of  South  Africa, 
in  order  that  she  could  seize  the  gold  mines,  and 


by  means  of  a  tax  of  50  per  cent,  on  their  output 
secure  for  herself  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  gold 
in  the  world. 

One  heard  a  good  deal  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
South  African  War  of  the  part  that  the  gold  mines 
played  in  precipitating  that  conflict.  Alike  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent,  it  was  generally 
asstuned  that  Great  Britain  was  "after  the  gold 
mines."  A  long  correspondence  took  place  in 
the  Times  as  to  the  real  value  of  the  mines,  and 
speculation  as  to  the  amount  of  money  which  it 
was  worth  Great  Britain's  while  to  spend  in  their 
**  capture.  '*  Well,  now  that  England  has  won  the 
war,  how  many  gold  mines  has  she  captured?  In 
other  words,  how  many  shares  in  the  gold  mines 
does  the  British  Government  hold?  How  many 
mines  have  been  transferred  from  their  then  owners 
to  the  British  Government  as  the  result  of  British 
victory  ?  How  much  tribute  does  the  Government 
of  Westminster  exact  as  the  result  of  investing 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miUions  in  the  enterprise? 

The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  England  does  not 
hold  a  dollar's  worth  of  the  property.  The  mines 
belong  to  the  shareholders  and  to  no  one  else, 
and  in  the  conditions  of  the  modem  world  it  is 
not  possible  for  a  government  to  capture  so 
much  as  a  single  pound  of  such  property  as  the 
result  of  a  war  of  conquest. 

Supposing  that  Germany  or  any  other  con- 
queror were  to  put  on  the  output  of  the  mines  a 


122 


The  Great  Illusion 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        123 


duty  of  50  per  cent.'     What  would  she  get,  and 
what  would  be  the  result?     The  output  of  the 
South  African  mines  to-day  is,  roughly,  thirty  mil- 
lion sterling  a  year,  so  that  she  would  get  about 
fifteen  millions  a  year.     The  annual  total  income 
of  Germany  is  calculated  at  something  like  three 
thousand  million  sterling,  so  that  a  tribute  of  fif- 
teen million  would  hold  about  the  same  propor- 
tion to  Germany's  total  income  that,  say,  twenty 
cents  a  day  would  to  the  income  of  a  man  in 
receipt  of  $10,000   a  year.     It  would  represent 
the  expenditure  that  a  middle-class  householder 
with    an   income    of    two    or     three    thousand 
dollars    a    year     makes    upon,    say,    matches. 
Could  one  imagine   such  a  householder  in  his 
right    mind    committing    burglary    and   murder 
in  order  to  economize  thirty-five  cents  a  week? 
Yet  that  would  be  the  position  of  the  German 
Empire  engaging  upon  a  great  and  costly  war 
for  the  purpose  of  exacting  fifteen  million  sterling 
a  year  from  the  South  African  mines ;  or,  rather, 
the  situation  for  the  German  Empire  would  be 
a  great  deal  worse  than  that.    For  this  house- 
holder having  committed  burglary  and  murder 
for  the  sake  of  his  thirty-five  cents  a  week — the 
German  Empire,  that  is,  having  entered  into  one 
of  the  most  frightful  wars  of  history  to  exact  its 

»  A  financier  to  whom  I  showed  the  proofs  of  this  chapter 
made  a  note  at  this  point:  "  You  can  say  that  were  such  a  tax 
imposed  the  result  would  be  nil.'* 


tribute  of  fifteen  millions  sterling — would  then  find 
that  in  order  to  get  this  thirty-five  cents  it  had 
to   jeopardize   many   of   the   investments   upon 
which  the  bulk  of  its  income  depended.     On  the 
morrow  of  imposing  a  tax  of  fifty  per  cent,  on 
the  mines  there  would  be  such  a  slump  in  a  class 
of  security  now  dealt  in  by  every  considerable 
stock  exchange  in  the  world  that  there  would 
hardly  be  a  considerable  business  firm  in  Europe 
unaffected   thereby.      Englishmen   know   of   the 
difficulty  that  a  relatively  mild  fiscal  attack,  de- 
livered rather  for  social  and  moral  than  economic 
reasons,  upon  a  class  of  property  like  the  brewing 
trade,  provokes.     What  sort  of  outcry,  therefore, 
would   be   raised    throughout    the    world    when 
every  South  African  mining  share  in  the  world 
loses  at  one  stroke  half  its  value,  and  a  great 
many  of  them  lose  all  their  value?    Who  would 
invest  money  in  the  Transvaal  at  all  if  property 
were  to  be  subject  to  that  sort  of  shock?     In- 
vestors would  argue  that  though  it  be  mines 
to-day,  it  might  be  other  forms  of  property  to- 
morrow,  and   South   Africa   would  find   herself 
in  the  position  of  being  able  hardly  to  borrow  a 
shilling    for    any    purpose    whatsoever,  save    at 
usurious  and  extortionate  rates  of  interest.     The 
whole  of  South  African  trade  and  industry  would, 
of  course,  feel  the  effect,  and   South  Africa   as 
a  market  would  immediately  begin  to   dwindle 
in  importance.    And  those  businesses  bound  up 


124 


The  Great  Illusion 


with  South  African  affairs  would  waver  on  the 
brink  of  ruin,  and  many  of  them  topple   over. 
Is  that  the  way  efficient  Germany  would  set 
about  the  development  of   her   newly  acquired 
Empire?    She  would  soon  find  that  she  had  a 
ruined  colony  on  her  hands.    And  if  in  South 
Africa  the  sturdy  Dutch  and  English  stock  did 
not  produce  a  George  Washington  with  a  better 
material  and  moral  case  for  independence  than 
George  Washington  ever  had,  then  history  has 
no  meaning.    And  if  it  cost  England  two  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  to  conquer  Dutch  South  Africa, 
what  would  it  cost  Germany  to  conquer  Anglo- 
Dutch  South  Africa?    Such  a  poHcy  could  not, 
of  course,  last  six  months,  and  Germany  would 
end  by  doing  what  Great  Britain  has  ended  by 
doing — she  would  renounce  all  attempt  to  exact 
a  tribute  or  commercial  advantage  other  than 
those  w^hich  are  the  result  of  free  co-operation 
with  the  South  African  people.     In  other  words, 
she  would  learn  that   the  policy  which  Great 
Britain  has  adopted  was  not  adopted  by  philan- 
thropy, but  in  the  hard  school  of  bitter  experience. 
Germany  would  see  that  the  last  word  in  colonial 
statesmanship   is   to   exact    nothing   from   your 
colonies,  and  where  the  greatest  colonial  power 
of  history  has  been  unable  to  follow  any  other 
policy,  a  poor  intruder  in  the  art   of  colonial 
administration   would    not    be   likely    to    prove 
more  successful,  and  she,  too,  wotild  find  that  the 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        125 

only  way  to  treat  colonies  is  to  treat  them  as 
independent  or  foreign  territories,  and  the  only 
way  to  own  them  is  to  make  no  attempt  at  exer- 
cising any  of  the  functions  of  ownership.     And  all 
the  reasons  which  gave  force  to  this  principle  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries — and  the 
whole   monopolistic    system   had   broken   down 
long  before  it  was  abolished  by  law — ^have  been 
reinforced    a   hundredfold    by    all    the    modem 
contrivances  of  credit  and  capital,  quick  com- 
munication, popular  government,  popular  press, 
the  conditions  and  cost  of  warfare — ^the  whole 
weight,  indeed,  of   modem   progress.     It  is  not 
a  question  here  of  theorizing,  of  the  erection  of  an 
elaborate  thesis,  nor  is  it  a  question  of  arguing 
what    the   relations    of    Colonies   ought  to  be. 
The  differences  between  the  Imperialist  and  the 
Little  Englander  do  not  enter  into  the  discussion 
at  all.     It  is   simply  a   question   of   what   the 
unmistakable    outstanding    facts    of    experience 
have  taught,  and  we  all  know.  Imperialists  and 
Little  Englanders  alike,  that  whatever  the  rela- 
tions with  the  Colonies  are  to  be,  that  relationship 
must  be  fixed  by  the  free  consent  of  the  Colonies, 
by  their  choice,  not  ours.    And  Englishmen  know, 
as  informed  Germans  must  know,  that  to  attempt 
now  what  was  impossible  two  hundred  years  ago, 
is  sheer  midstunmer  madness.     And  to  suppose 
that  Germany  would  seriously  set  about  conquer- 
ing first  England  and  then  South  Africa,  would 


ll 


lii 


126 


The  Great  Illusion 


attempt  a  policy  which  all  history  shows  to  be 
doomed  to  failure,  is  midsummer  madness  in  still 
worse  degree,  yet  it  is  the  sort  of  madness  that  one 
may  find  blatant  in  the  mouths  of  even  respectable 
public  men  like  Mr.  Harrison,  and  in  the  columns 
of  serious  organs  like  the  Times,    Sir  J.  R.  Seeley 
notes  in  his  book,  The  Expansion  of  England,  that 
because  the  early  Spanish  Colonies  were  in  a  true 
sense  of  the  word  "  possessions,"  we  acquired  the 
habit  of  talking  of  ** possessions"  and  "owner- 
ship," and  our  whole  ideas  of  colonial  policy  were 
vitiated  during  three  centuries,  simply  by  the  fatal 
hypnotism  of  an  incorrect  word.    Is  it  not  time  that 
we  shook  off  the  influence  of  these  fatal  words? 
Canada,    Australia,    New    Zealand,    and    South 
Africa  are  not  "possessions."    They  are  no  more 
possessions  than  is  Argentina  or  Brazil,  and  the 
nation  which  conquered  England,  which  even  cap- 
tured London,  would  be  hardly  nearer  to  the  con- 
quest of  Canada  or  Australia  than  if  it  happened 
to  occupy  Constantinople  or  St.  Petersburg.   Why, 
therefore,  do  we  tolerate  the  loose  talk  which 
assimies  that  the  master  of  London  is  also  master 
of  Montreal,  Vancouver,  Cape  Town,  Johannes- 
burg, Melbourne,  and  Sydney?    Have  we  not  had 
about    enough    of   this    terrorist  talk,   which    is 
persistently    blind    to    the    simplest    and    most 
elementarv  factors  of  the  case?' 

*  As  German  opinion  is  presumably  even  less  informed  on  this 


How  Colonies  Are  Owned        127 

side  of  the  subject  than  is  opinion  in  England  or  America,  I  have 
incorporated  in  the  German  edition  of  this  book  a  good  deal  of 
additional  matter,  which  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix  of  this 
edition,  and  those  who  did  not  regard  this  as  a  closed  question 
ought  most  emphatically  to  read  the  Appendix  referred  to.  The 
position  of  the  Philippines  to  the  United  States  more  nearly  re- 
sembles that  of  a  British  Crown  Colony  to  Great  Britain  than 
does  that  of  the  great  self-governing  colonies.  But  I  have  ex- 
pressly excluded  from  the  consideration  of  the  benefits  of  con- 
quest those  cases  in  which  a  more  civilized  power  employs  its 
force  for  ensuring  more  stable  conditions  in  less  civilized  territory. 
This  whole  matter  is  discussed  in  detail  in  Chapter  V,  part  2. 
Even  where  exclusive  privileges  are  sought  in  such  territory  the 
real  benefit  to  the  people  of  the  "owning"  country  is  very  ques- 
tionable, as  is  shown  by  the  history  of  vSpain,  Portugal,  and  France 
in  the  past  as  well  as  by  the  recent  history  of  Spain  and  Portugal. 
Those  points  also  are  dealt  with  in  the  chapter  which  is  referred 
to,  as  well  as  more  specifically  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONQUEROR  OR  POLICEMAN? 


Alsace  and  Algeria— What  is  the  difference?— How  Germany 
exploits  without  conquest— Or  emigration— What  is  the 
difference  between  an  army  and  a  police  force? — The  policing 
of  the  world — Germany's  share  of  it  in  the  Near  East. 

THERE  remain  cases  which  apparently,  how- 
ever, do  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the 
facts  outlined  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Ad- 
mitting that  the  conquest  and  exploitation  for 
the  benefit  of  the  conqueror  of  modem  inde- 
pendent nations,  such  as  are  the  self-governing 
British  Colonies,  is  a  sheer  physical  impossibility, 
that  such  a  process  belongs  to  the  past  and  is 
not  possible  in  the  modem  world;  admitting 
that  the  transfer  of  a  province  like  Alsace-Lorraine 
from  one  Government  to  another  is  merely  a 
jugglery  with  administrative  areas,  benefiting 
neither  the  "conqueror"  nor  the  inhabitants  of 
such  area;  admitting  that  the  advantages  of  the 
pre-emption  by  force  of  empty  territory  suitable 
for  colonization  by  the  white  race,  the  process 


Conqueror  or  Policeman  ?         129 


that  is  which  gave  to  Great  Britain  self -governing 
Colonies,  is  also  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  cannot 
now  be  regarded  as  a  contingency  of  practical 
politics — there  remain  cases  which  do  not  at  first 
sight  seem  to  be  covered  by  the  arguments  of  the 
preceding    chapter.     It    is    urged    that,    though 
Germany   has   received   no   tangible   advantage 
by  the  annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  the  annexa- 
tion of  Algeria  has  been  a  tangible  advantage 
to  France;  that  it  is  better  for  Americans  that 
California,    which    was    acquired    by    conquest, 
should    be  under  American   rather  than  under 
Mexican  mle;  that  both  conquests  have  brought 
territories  suitable  for  colonization  by  the  con- 
queror,   and   that    they   would   not   have   been 
suitable  except  for  such   conquest;   that,   to   a 
modified    (a   much  modified!)  degree,   the  same 
would  be  true  of  the  American  conquest  of  the 
Philippines;  and  that  circumstances  may  arise  in 
which  similar  contingencies  may  present  them- 
selves (diplomacy  does  indeed  attribute  to  Ger- 
many  similar  schemes  of  conquest  in  Asia  Minor), 
and  that  the  scramble  for  semi-civilized  territory 
is  likely  to  furnish  as  fmitful  a  source  of  conflict 
between  the  great  Powers  as  did  the  scramble  for 
the  New  World. 

Here,  as  in  every  section  of  this  subject, 
we  are  dominated  by  the  tyranny  of  an  obso- 
lete  terminology,  and  are  the  victims  of  the  con- 
fusion which  results  therefrom.     It  is  important 


I 


130 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  keep  certain  tangible  facts  of  the  case  in 
mind. 

In  a  subsequent  section  of  this  book^  I  have 
attempted  to  show  how  enormously  the  mechanical 
development  of  civilization  is  shifting  the  real 
conflict  of  humanity  from  the  physical  to  the 
intellectual  plane.  It  is  as  certain  as  anything 
can  be  that  struggle  will  in  the  future  go  on  as 
vigorously  as  ever.  Force  will  rule  the  world  in 
the  future  as  in  the  past,  but  it  will  be  the  force 
of  hard  work  and  superior  brain,  not  the  force  of 
cannon  and  Dreadnoughts, 

When  one  nation,  say  England,  occupies  a 
territory,  does  it  mean  that  that  territory  is 
**lost"  to  Germans?  We  know  this  to  be  an 
absurdity.  Germany  does  an  enormous  and  in- 
creasing trade  with  the  territory  that  has  been 
pre-empted  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Millions 
of  Germans  in  Germany  gain  their  livelihood  by 
virtue  of  German  enterprise  and  German  industry 
in  Anglo-Saxon  coujitries — indeed,  it  is  the  bitter 
and  growing  complaint  of  Englishmen  that  they 
are  being  driven  out  of  these  territories  by  the 
Germans;  that  where  originally  British  shipping 
was  universal  in  the  East,  German  shipping  is 
now  coming  to  occupy  the  prominent  place;  that 
the  trade  of  whole  territories  which  Englishmen 
originally  had  to  themselves  is  now  being  captured 

« Chapter  V.,  Part  II.,  "The  Diminishing  Factor  of  Physical 
Force." 


Conqueror  or  Policeman?         131 

by  Germans,  and  this  not  merely  where  the  fiscal 
arrangements  are  more  or  less  under  the  control 
of  the  British  Government,  as  in  the  Crown 
Colonies,  but  in  those  territories  originally  British, 
Hke  the  United  States,  and  nominally  so  no  longer,' 
as  well  as  in  those  territories  which  are  in  reality 
independent,  like  AustraHa  and  Canada,  though 
nominally  still  under  British  control. 

Moreover,  why  need  Germany  occupy  the  ex- 
traordinary position  of   phantom    "ownership" 
which  England  occupies,  in  order  to  enjoy  all  the 
real  benefits   which  in  our   day   result   from   a 
Colonial  Empire?    More  Germans  have  found 
homes  in   the   United  States  in   the  last  half- 
century  than  Englishmen  have  in  aU  their  Colo- 
nies.    It   is   calculated    that    between    ten    and 
twelve  milHons  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  are  of  direct  German  descent.     It  is  true, 
of  course,  that  these  Germans  do  not  five  under 
their  flag,  but  the  truth  is  that  they  do  not  re- 
gret that  fact,  but  rejoice  in  it!    The  majority  of 
German  emigrants  do  not  desire  that  the  land  to 
which  they  go  shall  have  the  poHtical  character 
of  the  land  which  they  leave  behind.    The  fact 
that,  in  adopting  the  United  States,  they  have 
shed  something  of  the  German   tradition  and 
create  a  new  national  type,  partaking  in  part  of 
the  English  and  in  part  of  the  German,  is,  on 
tne  whole,  very  much  to  their  advantage— and 
incidentally  to  ours.    Writing  recently  of  "  Home- 


132 


The  Great  Illusion 


Sickness  among  the  Emigrants"  (the  World,  July 
19,   1910),  Mr.  Aflalo  says: 

The  Germans  are,  of  all  nations,  the  least  troubled 
with  this  weakness.  Though  far  more  warmly  at- 
tached to  the  hearth  than  their  neighbours  across  the 
Rhine,  they  feel  exile  less.  Their  one  idea  is  to  evade 
conscription,  and  this  offers  to  all  Continental  nations 
a  compensation  for  exile  which  to  the  Englishman 
means  nothing.  I  remember  a  colony  of  German 
fishermen  on  Lake  Tahoe,  the  loveliest  water  in  Cali- 
fornia, where  the  pines  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  must 
have  vividly  recalled  their  native  Harz.  Yet  they 
rejoiced  in  the  freedom  of  their  adopted  country  and 
never  knew  a  moment's  regret  for  the  Fatherland. 


II 


An  English  journalist,  giving  his  experiences 
in  Australia,  writes': 

The  history  of  the  foundation  of  the  Colony  of 
South  Australia  is  interesting.  At  one  time  Silesian 
Lutherans  formed  a  tenth  part  of  the  population  of 
the  whole  Colony,  and  there  are  now  townships  in 
which  every  name  on  the  shop-front  is  German,  and 
German  is  the  common  language  of  the  home.  One 
such  township  is  Tanunda. 

Almost  every  one  of  its  inhabitants  is  German  by 
descent,  if  not  by  birth.  The  churches  are  Lutheran, 
and  one  of  them  is  old,  with  a  flower-grown  graveyard 
in  front  and  a  flagged  path  leading  up  to  its  door.     I 


'  A.  Marshall  in  the  Daily  Mail,  London,  April  11,  1910. 


Conqueror  or  Policeman  ?         133 

was  there  on  Sunday,  and  saw  the  German  farmers 
from  the  surrounding  district  driving  their  families 
home  after  service,  and  the  German  hausfraus  walking 
the  streets  with  their  service-books,  dressed  in  their 
best.  The  Germans  make  excellent  colonists,  and 
have  taken  kindly  to  Australian  life. 


All  this  is  very  dreadful,  of  course,  but,  after 
all,  why  should  Anglo-Saxons  of  all  people  blame 
Germans  for  preferring  freedom  to  an  irksome 
regimentation?  Carry  the  matter  a  little  farther: 
should  we  blame  a  Turk  for  preferring  England 
to  Turkey?  The  blind  dogma  of  patriotism 
needs  a  little  qualification,  and  if  we  give  it 
the  qualification  which  interest  and  common- 
sense  justify,  we  shall  realize  that  much  of  even 
the  sentimental  motive  for  a  nation  like  Germany 
desiring  colonies  will  vanish  into  thin  air.  In- 
deed, in  our  own  case,  are  not  certain  foreign 
countries  much  more  of  real  colonies  for  our 
children  of  the  future,  than  certain  territory 
under  our  own  flag?  Will  not  England's  children 
find  better  and  more  congenial  conditions,  much 
more  of  a  colony,  in  Philadelphia,  which  is 
''foreign,"  than  in  Bombay,  which  she  "owns"? 

And  what  is  true  of  the  Germans  or  English 
in  America  or  Australia  is  true  of  the  French  in 
Canada.  Are  the  French  any  the  worse  because 
Canada  is  not  "owned"  by  France?  Is  not  the 
whole  question  of  the  "ownership"  of  Colonies 


Lt 

-t 
( 


134 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


becoming  an  academic  one,  since  if  the  Colony 
succeeds  it  settles  the  question  by  "owning" 
itself;  and  if  it  does  not  succeed  it  is  only  a  burden 
to  the  mother-coimtry. 

I  know  it  will  be  urged  that,  despite  all  this, 
national  sentiment  of  a  nation  will  always  desire  for 
the  overflow  of  its  population  territories  in  which 
that  nation's  language,  law,  and  literature  reign. 

Again,  to  this  objection  we  must  point  out  that 
the  day  is  past  when  it  is  possible  for  Germany 
to  achieve  such  a  result  by  conquest.  The  Ger- 
man conqueror  of  the  future  would  have  to  say 
with  Napoleon,  **I  come  too  late.  The  nations 
are  too  firmly  set."  Even  when  the  English,  the 
greatest  colonizers  of  the  world,  conquer  a  terri- 
tory like  the  Transvaal  or  the  Orange  Free  State, 
they  have  no  resort,  having  conquered  it,  but  to 
allow  its  own  law,  its  own  literature,  its  own 
language  to  have  free  play,  just  as  though  the 
conquest  had  never  taken  place.  This  was  even 
the  case  with  Quebec  more  than  one  hundred 
years  ago,  and  Germany  will  have  to  be  guided 
by  a  like  rule.  On  the  morrow  of  conquest  she 
would  have  to  proceed  to  establish  her  real 
ascendancy  by  other  than  military  means — a 
thing  she  is  free  to  do  to-day,  if  she  can.  It  can- 
not throughout  this  discussion  be  too  often  re- 
peated that  the  world  has  been  modified,  and 
that  what  was  possible  to  the  Canaanites  or  the 
Romans,  or  even  to  the  Normans,  is  no  longer 


Conqueror  or  Policeman  ?         135 

possible  to  us.     The  edict  can  no  longer  go  forth 
to  "slay  every  male  child"  that  is  bom  into  the 
conquered  territory,  in  order  that  the  race  may 
be  exterminated.     Conquest  in  this  sense  is  im- 
possible.   The  most  marvellous  Colonial  history  in 
the  world — British  Colonial  history — demonstrates 
that  in  this  field  physical  force  is  no  longer  of  avail. 
Moreover,  always  as  bearing  upon  the  actual 
policy  which  concerns  us,  there  is  a  ftirther  im- 
portant fact  to  be  considered:  Germany's  era  of 
emigration  has,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  passed. 
Germans  no  longer  emigrate,  and  the  chief  cause 
is  that  factor  which  modifies  this  whole  problem 
at  numberless  points — the  development  of  the 
means  of  commimication.    The  manufacturer  in 
Prussia,  just  as  the  manufacturer  in  Lancashire, 
is  able  to  exploit  a  distant  territory  without 
going  there,   and  will  support  himself  and  his 
factory  out  of  such  territory  without  ever  moving 
from  Prussia  or  Lancashire.    England's  greatest 
industry  is  carried  on  thanks  to  the  product  of 
States  over  which  she  has  no  sort  of  political 
control.     Here  again  we  see  the  distinction  be- 
tween modem  and  ancient  conditions.     Germany, 
by  virtue  of  improved  means  of  commimication, 
is  doing  an  enormous  trade  with  South  America; 
thousands,  it  may  be  millions,  of  Germans  gain 
their  livelihood  in  Germany  by  the  exploitation 
of  South  American  territory.     In  the  pre-economic 
era  such  a  thing  would  not  have  been  possible 


m 

i 

\ 


1 


it^ 


!   I 


136 


The  Great  Illusion 


except  by  virtue  of  the  actual  political  conquest 
of  such  territory.  To-day  Germany  knows  such 
conquest  to  be  impossible.  Does  she  for  that 
reason  surrender  any  hope  of  having  South 
America  help  support  her  population?  Not  the 
least  in  the  world,  and,  as  I  have  remarked  in  the 
next  part  of  this  book,'  which  deals  more  com- 
pletely with  this  section  of  the  subject,  Germany, 
who  never  sent  a  soldier  into  South  America, 
to-day  draws  more  wealth  therefrom,  exacts  in- 
finitely more  tribute  therefrom,  than  does  Spain, 
which  has  poured  out  oceans  of  blood  in  its 
''conquest.**  Here,  as  at  every  point,  do  we  see 
the  futility  of  mere  military  conquest. 

This  is  the  real  struggle,  therefore  the  real  force 
of  the  future — the  force  of  work,  intelligence, 
efficiency,  so  fertile  of  useful  results;  not  the  force 
of  arms,  which  is  so  barren. 

At  one  point,  however,  one  may  look  for  armed 
intervention.  There  is  a  radical  difference  be- 
tween cases  like  Alsace-Lorraine  and  cases  like 
Algeria  and  California,  which  current  political 
conception  does  not  seem  sufficiently  to  realize. 
The  completer  exposition  of  this  difference,  which 
reaches  down  into  the  fundamental  principles  of 
human  progress,  into  the  very  biology  of  human 
development,  belongs  also  to  the  next  section  of 
this  book,  dealing  with  the  psychological  aspec* 

'  See  Chapter  V.,  Part  II. 


Conqueror  or  Policeman  ?         137 

of  the  case.  But  it  has  also  an  economic  side, 
which  should  briefly  be  touched  on  here.  I  will 
try  to  make  this  distinction  clear  by  an  apparent 
digression. 

To  a  critic  who  maintained  that  the  armies  of 
the  world  were  necessary  and  justifiable  on  the 
same  grounds  as  the  police  forces  of  the  world, 
adding,  "Even  in  communities  such  as  London, 
where,  in  our  civic  capacity,  we  have  nearly 
realized  all  your  ideals,  we  still  maintain  and  are 
constantly  improving  our  poHce  force,**  I  replied: 

When  we  learn  that  the  London  County  Council, 
instead  of  using  its  police  for  the  running  in  of  burglars 
and  "drunks,"  is  using  them  to  lead  an  attack  on  Bir- 
mingham for  the  purpose  of  capturing  that  city  as  part 
of  a  policy  of  "municipal  expansion,"  or  "Civic  Im- 
perialism," or  "Pan-Londonism,"  or  what  not;  or  is 
using  its  force  to  repel  an  attack  from  the  Birmingham 
police  acting  as  the  result  of  a  similar  policy  on  the 
part  of  the  Birmingham  patriots — when  that  happens 
you  can  safely  approximate  a  police  force  to  a  Euro- 
pean army.  But  until  it  does,  it  is  quite  evident  that 
the  two — the  army  and  the  police  force — have  in 
reality  diametrically  opposed  roles.  The  police  exist 
as  an  instrument  of  social  co-operation;  the  armies  as 
the  natural  outcome  of  the  quaint  illusion  that  though 
one  city  could  never  enrich  itself  by  "capturing"  or 
"subjugating"  another,  in  some  wonderful  (and  un- 
explained) way  one  country  can  enrich  itself  by 
capturing  or  subjugating  another. 


138 


The  Great  Illusion 


i|  ilii 


In  the  existing  condition  of  things  in  Eng- 
land  this  illustration  covers  the  whole  case:  the 
citizens  of  London  would  have  no  imaginable 
interest  in  ''conquering"  Birmingham,  or  vice 
versa.  But  suppose  there  arose  in  the  cities  of 
the  North  such  a  condition  of  disorder  that 
London  could  not  carry  on  its  ordinary  work 
and  trade;  then  London,  if  it  had  the  power, 
would  have  an  interest  in  sending  its  poHce 
into  Birmingham,  presuming  that  that  could 
be  done.  The  citizens  of  London  would  have 
a  tangible  interest  in  the  maintenance  of 
order  in  the  North — they  would  be  the  richer 
for  it. 

Order  was  just  as  well  maintained  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine  before  the  German  conquest  as  after, 
and  for  that  reason  Germany  has  not  benefited  by 
the  conquest.  But  order  was  not  maintained  in 
California,  and  would  not  have  been  as  well 
maintained  under  Mexican  as  imder  American 
nile,  and  for  that  reason  America  has  benefited 
by  the  conquest  of  California.  France  has  bene- 
fited by  the  conquest  of  Algeria,  England  by 
that  of  India,  because  in  each  case  the  arms 
were  employed  not,  properly  speaking,  for  con- 
quest at  all,  but  for  poHce  purposes,  for  the 
establishment  and  maintenance  of  order;  and, 
so  far  as  they  filled  that  r61e,  their  rdle  was  a 
useful  one. 

How  does  this  distinction  affect  the  practical 


M 


fl  ':^^ 


Conqueror  or  Policeman?         139 


problem  under  discussion?  Most  fundamentally. 
Germany  has  no  need  to  maintain  order  in  Eng- 
land, nor  England  in  Germany,  and  the  latent 
struggle  therefore  between  these  two  countries  is 
futile.  It  is  not  the  result  of  any  inherent  neces- 
sity of  either  people;  it  is  the  result  merely  of 
that  woful  confusion  which  dominates  statecraft 
to-day,  and  is  bound,  so  soon  as  that  confusion 
is  cleared  up,  to  come  to  an  end. 

Where  the  condition  of  a  territory  is  such  that 
the  social  and  economic  co-operation  of  other  coim- 
tries  with  it  is  impossible,  we  may  expect  the 
intervention  of  military  force,  not  as  the  result  of 
the  "annexationist  illusion,"  but  as  the  outcome 
of  real  social  forces  pushing  to  the  maintenance  of 
order.  That  is  the  story  of  England  in  Egypt,  or, 
for  that  matter,  in  India.  And  if  America  has 
any  justification  in  the  Philippines  at  all,  it  is 
not  that  she  has  "captured"  those  populations  by 
force  of  conquest,  as  in  the  old  days  a  raiding 
tribe  might  capture  a  band  of  cattle,  but  that  she 
is  doing  there  a  work  of  police  and  administration 
which  the  natives  cannot  do  for  themselves.  But 
foreign  nations  have  no  need  to  maintain  order 
in  the  British  Colonies,  nor  in  the  United  States, 
the  populations  of  those  countries  are  quite  capable 
of  doing  that  for  themselves;  and  though  there 
might  be  such  necessities  in  the  case  of  coimtries 
like  Venezuela,  the  last  few  years  have  taught  us 
that  by  bringing  these  countries  into  the  great 


•^ti  III' 


140 


The  Great  Illusion 


W ! 


:!n 


;i    I'll 


economic  currents  of  the  world,  and  so  setting  up 
in  them  a  whole  body  of  interests  in  favour  of  order, 
more  can  be  done  than  by  forcible  conquest.  We 
occasionally  hear  rumours  of  German  designs  in 
Brazil  and  elsewhere,  but  even  the  modicum  of 
education  possessed  by  the  average  European 
statesman  makes  it  plain  to  him  that  these  nations 
are,  Hke  the  others,  "too  firmly  set"  for  military 
occupation  and  conquest  by  an  alien  i)eople. 

What,  after  all,  is  the  practical  question  in  this 
whole  discussion?    Even  those  who  will  not  admit 
to  the  full  the  principles  which  I  have  attempted 
to  elaborate  in  this  book  will  certainly  be  obliged  to 
admit,  in  the  face  of  the  facts  outlined  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  that  any  talk  of  the  German 
conquest  of  British  Colonies  is  just  so  much  moon- 
shine.    It  will  never  be  accompHshed ;  it  will  never 
be  attempted;  and  those  who  write  and  talk  as 
though  it  would  must  be  guilty  either  of  very 
great  ignorance  or  some  insincerity.     There  will 
never  be  any  dupHcation  of  that  fight  for  empty 
territory   which    took   place   between   European 
nations  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cent- 
uries ;  the  completely  empty  territory  fit  for  white 
colonization  is  not   there.     Happily,   as   I  have 
attempted  briefly  to  indicate,  the  necessity  for  so 
finding  territorial  outlet  for  increasing  populations 
is  nothing  like  so  great  as  it  was.     Germany  is 
absorbing    her    increasing    population,    not    by 
sending  them  abroad,  but  by  so  improving  her 


i:';'i:i 


Ml 


Conqueror  or  Policeman?         141 

means  of  production  that,  thanks  to  them  and 
to  the  improved  means  of  communication,  she  is 
able  to  feed  them  at  home.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful, 
judging  solely  by  experience,  whether  even  if  she 
had  the  empty  territory  she  could  create  in  it  new 
German  nations  of  the  German  race,  as  England 
has  created  new  English  nations  of  the  EngHsh 
race,  since  her  very  commercial  success  renders  it 
unnecessary  for  Germany's  population  to  leave 
home.  It  is  not  territory  in  the  political  sense 
that  she  needs,  but  a  safe  field  for  investment  and 
rich  markets  for  her  products.  To  conquer  Eng- 
land would  not  make  such  fields  any  safer  or  such 
markets  any  richer.  Germany's  military  activi- 
ties, if  used  at  all,  will  be  used  quite  otherwise. 

It  is  one  of  the  humours  of  the  whole  Anglo- 
German  conflict  that  so  much  has  the  British 
public  been  concerned  with  the  myths  and  bogies 
of  the  matter  that  it  seems  calmly  to  have  ignored 
the  realities.  While  even  the  wildest  Pan-German 
has  never  cast  his  eyes  in  the  direction  of  Canada, 
he  has  cast  them,  and  does  cast  them,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Asia  Minor;  and  the  poHtical  activities  of 
Germany  may  centre  on  that  area  for  precisely 
the  reasons  which  result  from  the  distinction 
between  policing  and  conquest  which  I  have 
drawn.  German  industry  is  coming  to  have  a 
dominating  situation  in  the  Near  East,  and  as 
those  interests — her  markets  and  investments — • 
increase,  the  necessity  for  better  order  in,  and  the 


>l 


142 


The  Great  Illusion 


better  organization  of,  such  territories  increases  in 
corresponding  degree.  Germany  may  need  to 
police  Asia  Minor. 

What  interest  has  England  in  attempting  to 
prevent  her.?    It  may  be  urged  that  she  would 
close   the   markets   of   those   territories   against 
England.    But  even  if  she  attempted  it,  which 
she  is  never  likely  to  do,  a  Protectionist  Asia 
Mmor  organized  with  German  efficiency  would 
be  better  from  the  point  of  view  of  English  trade 
than  a  Free  Trade  Asia  Minor  organized  t  la 
Turque.    Protectionist   Germany  is  one  of  the 
best  markets  that  England  has  in  Europe.     If  a 
second  Germany  were  created  in  the  Near  East, 
if  Turkey  had  a  population  with  the  German 
purchasing  power  and  the  German  tariff,  the  mar- 
kets would  be  worth  some  forty  to  fifty  milhons 
instead  of  some  ten  to  fifteen.     Why  should  Eng- 
land try  to  prevent  Germany  increasing  her  trade? 
It  is  true  that  we  touch  here  the  whole  problem 
of  the  fight  for  the  open  door  in  the  undeveloped 
territories.     But  the  real  difficulty  in  this  problem 
is  not  the  open  door  at  all,  but  the  fact  that  Ger- 
many is  beating  England— or  England  fears  she 
is  beating  her— in  those  territories  where  England 
has  the  same  tariff  to  meet  that  she  has.  or  even 
a  smaller  one;  and  that  she  is  even  beating  the 
EngHsh  in  the  territories  that  they  already  "own" 
—in  their  Colonies,  in  the  East,  in  India.     How, 
therefore,  would  England's  final  crushing  of  Ger- 


Conqueror  or  Policeman?         143 

many  in  the  military  sense  change  anything? 
Suppose  England  crushed  her  so  completely  that 
she  "owned"  Asia  Minor  and  Persia  as  com- 
pletely as  she  owns  India  or  Hong-Kong,  would 
not  the  German  merchant  continue  to  beat  the 
English  merchant  even  then,  as  he  is  beating  him 
now,  in  that  part  of  the  East  over  which  England 
already  holds  political  sway?  Again,  how  would 
the  disappearance  of  the  German  Navy  affect  the 
problem  one  way  or  the  other? 

Moreover,  in  this  talk  of  the  open  door  in  the 
undeveloped  territories  we  seem  to  lose  all  our 
sense  of  proportion.  England's  trade  is  in  relative 
importance  first  with  the  great  nations — the 
United  States,  France,  Germany,  Argentina,  South 
America  generally;  after  that  with  the  white 
Colonies ;  after  that  with  the  organized  East ;  and 
last  of  all,  and  to  a  very  small  extent,  with  the 
countries  concerned  in  this  squabble  for  the  open 
door — territories  in  which  the  trade  really  is  so 
small  as  hardly  to  pay  for  the  making  and  upkeep 
of  a  dozen  battleships. 

When  the  man  in  the  street,  or,  for  that  matter, 
the  journalistic  pundit,  talks  commercial  diplo- 
macy, his  arithmetic  seems  to  fall  from  him. 
Some  years  since  the  question  of  the  relative 
position  of  the  three  Powers  in  Samoa  exercised 
the  minds  of  these  wiseacres,  who  got  quite  fear- 
fully warlike  both  in  England  and  in  the  United 
States.    Yet  the  trade  of  the  whole  island  is  not 


144 


The  Great  Illusion 


worth  that  of  an  obscure  Dorset  village,  and  the 
notion  that  naval  budgets  should  be  increased  to 
"maintain  position,"  the  notion  that  either  of  the 
countries  concerned  should  really  think  it  worth 
while  to  build  so  much  as  a  single  battleship  the 
more  for  such  a  piirpose,  is  not  throwing  away  a 
sprat  to  catch  a  whale,  but  throwing  away  a  whale 
to  catch  a  sprat — and  then  not  catching  it.  For 
even  when  one  has  the  predominant  political  posi- 
tion, even  when  one  has  got  extra  Dreadnoughts  or 
extra  twelve  Dreadnoughts,  it  is  the  more  efficiently 
organized  nation  on  the  commercial  side  that  will 
take  the  trade.  And  while  England « is  getting 
excited  over  the  trade  of  territories  that  matters 
very  Httle,  rivals,  including  Germany,  will  be 
quietly  walking  off  with  the  trade  that  does 
matter,  will  be  increasing  their  hold  upon  such 
markets  as  the  United  States,  Argentina,  South 
America,  and  the  lesser  Continental  States. 

If  we  really  examined  these  questions  without 
the  old  meaningless  prepossessions,  we  should  see 
that  it  is  more  to  the  general  interest  to  have  an 
orderly  and  organized  Asia  Minor  under  German 
tutelage  than  to  have  an  unorganized  and  dis- 
orderly one  which  should  be  independent.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  best  of  all  that  Great  Britain 
should  do  the  organizing  or  share  it  with  Germany, 
though  England  has  her  hands  full  in  that  respect 
— Egypt  and  India  are  problems  enough.  And 
why  should  England  forbid  Germany  to  do  in  a 


Conqueror  or  Policeman  ?         145 

small  degree  what  she  has  done  in  a  large  degree? 
Sir  Harry  Johnson,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for 
December,  19 10,  comes  a  great  deal  nearer  to 
touching  the  real  kernel  of  the  problem  that  is 
preoccupying  Germany  than  any  of  the  writers 
on  the  Anglo-German  conflict  of  whom  I  know. 
As  the  result  of  careful  investigation,  he  admits 
that  Germany's  real  objective  is  not,  properly 
speaking,  England  or  England's  Colonies  at  all, 
but  the  undeveloped  lands  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
Asia  Minor,  Mesopotamia,  down  even  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Euphrates.  He  adds  that  the  best  informed 
Germans  use  this  language  to  him: 

In  regard  to  England,  we  would  recall  a  phrase 
dropped  by  ex-President  Roosevelt  at  an  important 
public  speech  in  London,  a  phrase  which  for  some 
reason  was  not  reported  by  the  London  press.  Roose- 
velt said  that  the  best  guarantee  for  Great  Britain  on 
the  Nile  is  the  presence  of  Germany  on  the  Euphrates. 
Putting  aside  the  usual  hypocrisies  of  the  Teutonic 
peoples,  you  know  that  this  is  so.  You  know  that 
we  ought  to  make  common  cause  in  omt  dealings  with 
the  backward  races  of  the  world.  Let  Britain  and 
Germany  once  come  to  an  agreement  in  regard  to  the 
question  of  the  Near  East,  and  the  world  can  scarcely 
again  be  disturbed  by  any  great  war  in  any  part  of 
the  globe,  if  such  a  war  is  contrary  to  the  interests  of 
the  two  Empires. 

Such,  declares  Sir  Harry,  is  German  opinion. 
And  in  all  human  probability — so  far  as  sixty-five 


zo 


It 

it. 


146 


The  Great  Illusion 


iMi 


million  people  can  be  said  to  have  the  same  opinion 
— he  is  absolutely  right. 

It  is  because  the  work  of  policing  backward  or 
disorderly  populations  is  so  often  confused  with 
the  annexationist  illusion  that  the  danger  of  squab- 
bles in  the  matter  is  a  real  one.  Not  the  fact  that 
England  is  doing  a  real  and  useful  work  for  the 
world  at  large  in  policing  India,  creates  jealousy 
of  her  work  there,  but  the  notion  that  in  some  way 
she  "possesses**  this  territory,  and  draws  tribute 
and  exclusive  advantage  therefrom.  When  Eu- 
rope is  a  little  more  educated  on  these  matters,  the 
European  populations  will  realize  that  they  have 
no  primordial  interest  in  furnishing  the  policemen. 
German  public  opinion  will  see  that,  even  if  such 
a  thing  were  possible,  the  German  people  would 
gain  no  advantage  by  replacing  England  in  India, 
especially  as  the  final  result  of  the  administrative 
work  of  Europe  in  the  Near  and  Far  East  will  be 
to  make  populations  like  those  of  Asia  Minor  in 
the  last  resort  their  own  policemen.  Should  some 
Power,  acting  as  policemen,  ignoring  the  lessons 
of  history,  try  again  the  experiment  tried  by  Spain 
in  South  America  and  by  England  in  North 
America  later,  should  she  try  to  create  for  herself 
exclusive  privileges  and  monopolies,  the  other 
nations  have  means  of  retaliation  apart  from 
military  conflict — in  the  numberless  instruments 
which  the  economic  and  financial  relationships 
of  nations  furnish. 


PART  II 
The  Human  Nature  of  the  Case 


147 


fill 


i' 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CASE  FOR  WAR 

"You  cannot  leave  human  nature  out  of  the  account":  vanity, 
pride  of  place,  pugnacity,  the  inherent  hostility  of  nations 
— Nations  too  good  to  fight;  also  too  bad — Desire  for  mere 
material  comfort  not  the  main  motive  in  many  himian 
activities — Military  rivalry  of  nations  needs  long  prepara- 
tion— Such  rivalry  does  not  arise  from  "hot  fit,"  there- 
fore, but  actual  conflict  may  be  precipitated  thereby — 
Scientific  justification  of  international  pugnacity — Struggle 
between  nations  the  law  of  survival — If  a  nation  not 
pugnacious  in  some  degree,  it  will  be  eliminated  in  favour 
of  one  that  is — Pugnacity  therefore  a  factor  in  the  struggle 
of  nations,  and  must  necessarily  persist. 

I  OUGHT  more  properly,  perhaps,  to  have  en- 
titled this  section  *'The  Case  in  its  Biological 
and  Psychological  Aspect."  But  it  is  as  well 
to  avoid  technical  language  when  possible,  and 
the  phrase  used  at  the  beginning  of  this  part  is 
apposite  for  two  reasons.  Not  only  is  it  usually 
urged  that  man's  nature — the  instinctive  part  of 
him,  his  impulses — will  always  render  war  a 
likely  contingency  between  men,  but  also  that 
man's  vital  qualities,  his  virility  and  courage  and 
determination,  hardihood,  tenacity,  and  heroism, 

149 


y 


i|   HlI: 


ifl'l 


150 


The  Great  Illusion 


are  the  legacy   of  war,  aod  are  preserved   by 


war. 


I  have  desired  to  get  at  the  very  best  statement 
of  this  case,  which,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  has 
not  only  the  support  of  many  authorities  of  the 
very  greatest  weight— of  scientists,  philosophers, 
soldiers,  statesmen,  poets,  clergymen — but  repre- 
sents what  is,  perhaps,  the  very  commonest  ob- 
jection urged  to  a  purely  economic  statement  of 
the  case  for  peace :  the  objection  that  those  who 
plead  for  rationaHsm  in  the  international  relation- 
ship **  leave  human  nature  out  of  account."  With 
many  the  feeling  that  "all  this  logic  does  not 
amoimt  to  anything,"  even  when  they  are  unable 
to  formulate  any  definite  refutation  of  the  argu- 
ments outlined  in  the  first  part  of  this  book,  is 
very  profound  and  powerful.  It  is  felt  that,  even 
admitting  the  general  soundness  of  those  argu- 
ments, there  are  a  whole  range  of  motives  which 
remain  tmaccoimted  for.  Nations  do  not  fight 
merely  about  their  material  interests,  but  fre- 
quently on  purely  non-economic  grounds:  from 
vanity,  from  rivalry,  from  pride  of  place,  the 
desire  to  be  first,  to  occupy  a  great  situation  in 
the  world,  to  have  power  or  prestige,  or  from 
sheer  hostility  to  people  who  differ  from  us; 
from  qtiick  resentment  of  insult  or  injury,  the 
unreasoned  desire,  which  comes  of  quarrel  or 
disagreement,  to  dominate  a  rival  at  all  costs; 
the  "inherent  hostihty"  that  exists  between  rival 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    151 

nations;  from  the  contagion  of  sheer  passion — 
the  blind  strife   of   mutually  hating  men;  and 
generally  because  men  and  nations  always  have 
fought  and  always  will,  and  because,  like  the  ani- 
mals in  Watt's  doggerel,  "It  is  their  nature  to."' 
It  should,  however,  be  made  clear  that  the 
term  "ignoring  human  nature"  is  often  used  as 
implying,  not  that  men  are  disposed  to  overlook 
their  material  interests,  but   that  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  they  shotild  ever  do  so.     In  other 
words,  the  phrase  is  often  used  indifferently  to 
mean  two  diametrically  opposed  things.     On  the 
assumption — ^which,  as  pointed  out  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  book,  certain  phases  of  peace  ad- 
vocacy have  done  so  much  to  foster — that  those 
who  oppose  war  are  asking  men,  because  the  use 
of  force  is  immoral  and  cruel,  to  forego  an  ad- 
vantage which  they  might  obtain  by  resort  thereto, 
it  is  urged  that  in  such  a  plea  one  is  asking  too 
much  of  "imperfect  himian  nature."     This  view 
is  reflected  by  Mr.  St.  Iroe  Strachey  in  his  well- 
known  pamphlet.  The  New  Way  of  Life,  when  he 
writes  (page  12) : 

We  have  got  in  future  to  face  the  world,  not  as  we 
should  like  it  to  be,  but  as  it  is:  the  world  of  blood  and 

» A  prominent  international  banker  to  whom  I  gave  the  first 
edition  of  this  book  said,  "Though  the  economics  of  your  book 
are  unchallengeable,  it  is  futile,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
deals  with  material  interests,  and  people  to-day  do  not  go  to 
war  about  business  or  material  interest.  I  do  not  know  what 
they  go  to  war  about,  but  I  am  quite  sure  it  is  not  about  business." 


P 


1 


152 


The  Great  Illusion 


iron  controUed  by  men  who  are  not  humanitarians  and 
philanthropists,  but  persons  intensely  human  on  the 
other  side  of  man's  nature:  persons  who  do  not  take 
what  they  would  term  a  Sunday-school  view  of  the 
world,  but  rather  the  view  that  man  is  still  a  wild 
beast;  that  the  race  is  to  the  strong  and  not  to  the  well- 
mtentioned;  that  victory  belongs  to  the  big  battalions, 
not  to  those  who  say  that  they  envy  no  man  anything, 
and  who  cannot  understand  that  nations  should  hate 
or  be  jealous  of  each  other.  ...  We  must  not  pre- 
tend that  the  world  is  better  than  it  is,  or  different 
from  what  it  is,  but  take  its  true  measure  and  face  the 
facts  like  men.^ 

The  view  plainly  implied  here  is  that  men  are 
too  mercenary  to  take  account  of  ''sentiment" 
at  all,  or  to  be  moved  by  anything  but  their 
interests.  This  point  is  sufficiently  dealt  with 
in  the  first  part  of  this  book.  It  is  there  shown 
that  would  men  but  approach  the  question  from 
the  simple  view  of  their  interests— from  the  purely 
selfish  point  of  view,  that  is— it  would  be  quickly 
realized  that,  owing  to  the  change  in  the  nature  of 
wealth  which  the  developments  of  the  last  genera- 
tion have  brought  about,  military  force  has  been 
rendered  futile  for  the  achievement  of  any  eco- 

«  Compare  this  with  Major  Stewart  Murray's  opinion-  "Very 
plausible  and  very  dangerous  people  are  the  peace  idealists-^ 
too  good  aiid  innocent  for  a  hard,  cruel  world,  where  force  is  th« 
chief  law     (Future  Peace  of  the  Anglo-Saxons). 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    153 


nomic  aim.  The  idea  that  any  sacrifice  of  self- 
interest  is  needed  on  behalf  of  peace  is  there  shown 
to  repose  upon  a  series  of  political  and  economic 
illusions,  which  are  bound  in  the  near  future  to 
be  recognized  as  illusions,  however  far  from  such 
recognition  Europe  may  at  the  moment  appear 
to  be.  The  problem  which  is  dealt  with  in  this 
section  of  this  book  is  the  precise  reverse:  It  is 
the  fact  that  men,  far  from  being  too  mercenary 
to  consider  sentiment  good  or  bad,  are  so  senti- 
mental both  on  the  good  and  bad  side  as  fre- 
quently to  ignore  their  money  interests. 

The  fact  that  there  are  very  few  opposed  to 
the  peace  ideal  who,  in  speaking  of  ''unchanging 
human  nature,"  do  not  swing  at  random  between 
the  two  contradictory  contentions  just  indicated 
shows  how  incoherent  is  the  ordinary  discussion 
of  this  matter. 

I  do  not  think  that  any  one  who  need  be  con- 
sidered in  this  discussion  challenges  the  fact  that 
aroimd  national  conflicts  do  arise  all  those  primi- 
tive, blind  passions  of  the  complex,  elemental 
impulses  of  our  nature  which  have  no  relation  to 
material  interest,  and  which  are  bound  up  with 
so  much  of  our  conduct,  and  bound  up  with  the 
best  as  well  as  with  the  worst  side. 

After  all,  the  normal  motives  in  the  case  of 
ordinary  folk  are  not  for  the  greater  part  of  their 
activities  material  at  all.  Herbert  Spencer  has 
shown  us  that  even  the  primitive  savage  is  more 


154 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    155 


concerned  to  be  decorated  than  to  be  dressed.* 
If  physical  comfort  and  nothing  else  were  our 
aim,  few  of  us  wovdd  trouble  to  acquire  more  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  a  year  or  thereabouts,  as  some 
such  simi  will  secure  us  three  meals  a  day,  and 
few  of  us  can  eat  more.  Nevertheless,  in  our 
cities  we  find  thousands  of  men  already  enjoying 
incomes  more  than  sufficient  to  satisfy  every 
rational  want,  yet  working  feverishly  and  at 
the  sacrifice  of  comfort  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
creasing such  incomes  to  achieve  simply  social 
consideration,  not  infrequently  degenerating  into 
somewhat  futile  social  display.  Indeed,  one  may 
say  without  much  exaggeration  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  English  people  socially  above  the 
labouring  classes  are  mainly  concerned,  not  with 
the  increase  of  comfort,  but  with  the  keeping 
up  of  appearances.  The  phenomenon  is  mani- 
fest as  much  in  the  spectacle  of  girls  refusing 
well-paid  positions  in  domestic  service  to  accept 
ill-paid  ones  among  the  ranks  of  governesses  or 
shop-assistants  as  in  that  of  the  millionaire  who 
lives  a  life  harder  than  that  of  his  most  obscure 
clerk  in  order  that   he  may  outdo  in  financial 


»  Charles  Darwin  relates  that,  though  many  of  the  Patagonian 
tribes  possess  fine  furs,  as  soon  as  the  rain  and  sleet  come  thty 
carefully  take  them  off  in  order  that  they  should  not  get  spoiled. 
Those  familiar  with  the  primitive  men  in  South  Africa  have 
noticed  like  behaviour  when  a  Cape  "boy"  has  a  new  set  oC 
clothes. 


influence  some  rival  millionaire  who  is  leading  a 

like  life. 

And  vanity  is  evidently  not  the  only  non- 
material  motive  behind  much  of  our  individual 
conduct.  To  say  nothing  of  the  phenomenon  of 
religious  f  anatisism  which  has  in  the  past  drenched 
the  Western  world  in  blood,  and  still  does  so  much 
of  the  Eastern  world,  the  internal  conflicts  of 
nations,  the  hostility  which  comes  of  mere  differ- 
ence of  opinion  and  feeling  and  environment,  is 
very  keen  and  real.  Those  who  saw  anything  of 
the  state  of  feeling  am.ong  Frenchmen  during  the 
Dreyfus  case  had  borne  in  upon  them  very  strik- 
ingly how  deep  and  profoimd  were  the  divisions 
that  could  be  created  between  people  concerning 
a  matter  in  which  their  material  interests  were 
not  in  the  first  instance  directly  involved. 

A  psychological  factor  exhibited  thus  early  and 
thus  widely  in  social  evolution  is  not  likely  to  have 
left  international  politics  altogether  unaffected. 
Admiral  Mahan,  who  has  made  the  struggle 
for  domination  among  nations  his  especial  study, 
declares  that  some  such  consideration  as  that 
which  I  have  indicated  does  so  animate  the  strug- 
gle of  nations.     He  says : 

Like  individuals,  nations  and  empires  have  souls  as 
well  as  bodies.  Great  and  beneficent  achievement 
ministers  to  worthier  contentment  than  the  filling  of 
the  pocket.  Sentiment,  imagination,  aspiration,  the 
satisfaction  of  the  rational  and  moral  faculties  in  some 


i-SI 


fe 


I 


' 


156 


The  Great  Illusion 


object  better  than  bread  alone,  all  must  find  a  part  in  a 
worthy  motive.  That  extension  of  national  authority 
over  alien  communities  which  is  the  dominant  note  in 
the  world  politics  of  to-day  dignifies  and  enlarges  each 
citizen  that  enters  its  fold.  .  .  . 

It  is  useful,  by  the  way,  to  compare  Admiral 
Mahan's  view  with  Mr.  Strachey's  view  (quoted 
a  few  pages  back)  as  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
matter.  The  two  views  well  illustrate  the  fiat 
contradiction  involved  in  the  common  use  of 
the  phrase  about  ignoring  human  nature.  Here 
we  have  two  considerable  authorities  on  the 
matter:  one  of  them  representing  human  nature 
as  altogether  too  wedded  to  its  material  interest, 
too  animal  and  brutal,  to  give  up  warfare;  the 
other  as  so  aspiring  to  better  things  as  to  take 
little  accoimt  of  its  material  interests,  and  so 
animated  by  a  high  ambition  for  "greater  benefi- 
cent achievement,"  ''ministering  to  worthier  con- 
tentment than  the  filling  of  the  pocket,"  as  never 
likely  to  give  up  war. 

The  first  contention  we  have  dealt  with;  it  is 
the  second  that  now  concerns  us. 

It  may  perhaps  be  some  consciousness  of  the 
contradiction  I  have  just  touched  on  which  gives 
rise  to  a  somewhat  widespread  impression  that 
the  psychological  motive  of  war  is  incapable  of 
definite  analysis,  that  war  is  purely  ''accidental," 
arising  from  sudden  "hot  fits"  and  war  fevers 
too  obscure  in  cause  for  examination.     This  surely 


Hi 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    157 

is  the  extreme  of  unscientific  fatalism.  The  view 
moreover  is  not  one  taken  by  the  best  of  either 
side  in  this  discussion;  least  of  all  is  it  taken  by 
the  great  military  writers  who  one  and  all  declare 
that  wars  result  from  definite  and  determinable 
laws  like  all  the  great  processes  of  human  de- 
velopment. No  one  of  the  great  masters  of  the 
art  of  war,  from  Grotius  to  Von  der  Goltz,  ac- 
cepts this  view  of  the  sudden  and  "accidental" 
natiu*e  of  war.  Indeed,  there  are  certain  very 
obvious  objections  to  such  an  interpretation  of 
the  titanic  conflicts  that  have  shaken  humanity. 
To  say  of  himian  conduct  in  the  mass  that  it  is 
"motiveless"  is,  in  any  real  sense,  untrue,  and 
such  a  view  is  only  taken  by  those  who  do  not 
trouble  to  disentangle  causes  that  are  often 
highly  complex  and  obscure.  Nor  does  the 
history  of  warfare  justify  any  such  conclusion. 
The  causes  of  war  in  the  past  have  at  times  been 
trivial  enough,  in  all  conscience,  and  generally 
divorced  from  any  real  interest  of  the  people  who 
suffered  by  and  died  in  them.  But  the  reasons 
which  prompted  those  responsible  for  the  wars — 
the  diplomats  and  rulers — were  definite  enough. 
The  causes  may  have  been  dynastic  or  religious 
or  territorial,  or  simply  for  the  purpose  of  diverting 
attention  from  things  at  home;  or  in  more  modem 
times  merely  that  causes  of  quarrel  readily  capa- 
ble of  settlement  between  the  governments  con- 
cerned have  grown  into  wars  by  reason  of  the 


i 


li 


158 


The  Great  Illusion 


agitation  of  unscrupulous  politicians  or  a  sensa- 
tional press  inflaming  uninformed  public  opinion 
and  setting  up  the  irrational  contagion  known 
as  war  fever.  But  all  these  are  causes  and 
capable  of  analysis.  Moreover,  it  is  becoming 
almost  impossible  for  a  war  to  grow  out  of  a 
mere  ''hot  fit."  Such  can  precipitate  one  in  a 
day,  it  is  true,  but  only  if  preparation  for  the 
particular  war  in  question  has  been  going  on 
previously  for  a  very  long  time — ^for  years  and 
even  generations.  The  paraphernalia  of  war  in 
the  modem  world  cannot  be  improvised  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment  to  meet  each  gust  of  ill- 
feeling  and  dropped  when  it  is  over.  The  build- 
ing of  battleships,  the  discussion  of  budgets, 
and  the  voting  of  them;  the  training  of  armies, 
the  preparation  of  a  campaign,  is  a  long  business, 
and  more  and  more  in  our  day  does  each  dis- 
tinctive campaign  involve  a  special  and  distinctive 
preparation.  The  pundits  declare  that  the  Ger- 
man battleships  have  been  especially  built  with 
a  view  to  work  in  the  North  Sea.  In  any  case, 
we  know  that  the  conflict  with  Germany  has 
been  going  on  for  ten  years.  This  is  surely  a 
rather  prolonged  *'hot  fit."  The  truth  is  that 
war  in  the  modem  world  is  the  outcome  of  armed 
peace,  and  involves,  with  all  its  elaborate  ma- 
chinery of  yearly  budgets  and  slowly  building 
warships  and  forts  and  slowly  trained  armies, 
a  fixity  of  poUcy  and  purpose  extending  over 


r 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War  159 

years  and  sometimes  generations.  Men  do  not 
make  these  sacrifices  month  after  month,  year 
after  year,  pay  taxes  and  upset  governments 
and  fight  in  ParHament  for  a  mere  passing  whim; 
and  as  conflicts  necessarily  become  more  scientific, 
we  shall  in  the  nature  of  things  be  forced  to  pre- 
pare everything  more  thoroughly  and  have  clearer 
and  sounder  ideas  as  to  their  essence,  their  cause, 
and  their  effects,  and  to  watch  more  closely  their 
relation  to  national  motive  and  policy.  Von 
der  Goltz  {On  the  Conduct  of  War)  says: 

One  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  war  is 
the  consequence  and  continuation  of  policy.  One 
will  act  on  the  defensive  strategically  or  rest  on  the 
defensive  according  as  the  policy  has  been  offensive 
or  defensive.  An  offensive  and  defensive  policy  is  in 
its  turn  indicated  by  the  line  of  conduct  dictated  his- 
torically. We  see  this  very  clearly  in  antiquity  by 
the  example  furnished  us  by  the  Persians  and  the 
Romans.  In  their  wars  we  see  the  strategical  r61e 
following  the  bend  of  the  historical  r61e.  The  people 
which  in  its  historical  development  has  arrived  at  the 
stage  of  inertia,  or  even  retrogression,  will  not  carry 
on  a  policy  of  offence,  but  merely  one  of  defence;  a 
nation  in  that  situation  will  wait  to  be  attacked,  and 
its  strategy  will  consequently  be  defensive,  and  from 
a  defensive  strategy  will  follow  necessarily  a  defensive 
tactic. 


Lord  Esher^  expresses  a  like  ^-bought: 
«  To-day  and  To-morrow^  p.  63. 


...i 


60 


The  Great  Illusion 


A  nation  in  case  of  war  should  have  determined 
beforehand  where  to  strike,  and  should  be  prei)ared  to 
strike.  In  1 866,  and  again  in  1 870,  Prussia  reaped  the 
advantage  of  forethought  and  scientific  preparation. 
.  .  .  Austria  and  France  went  to  war  en  amateur, 
...  It  is  well  known  that  for  years  the  Japanese 
fully  foresaw  the  certainty  of  struggle  with  Russia. 
Schemes  were  elaborated  and  every  detail  of  prepara- 
tion attended  to  with  precision  and  care,  so  that  the 
long-expected  blow  fell  where  it  had  been  planned  to 
fall  with  extraordinary  rapidity  and  success.  ...  It 
is  realized  in  Germany  that  the  French  have  learned 
the  lesson  of  1870,  and  that  some  of  the  acutest  minds 
in  France  have  been  for  many  years  devoted  to  the 
consideration  of  problems  of  defence  and  offence. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  authorities  just 
quoted  write  in  the  terms  of  the  current  political 
philosophy — that  is  to  say,  they  assume  that 
war  is  the  outcome  of  man's  struggle  to  advance 
his  material  interests.  There  are  few  authorities 
indeed  who  urge  that  the  causes  of  war  are  purely 
or  mainly  psychological;  that  the  struggles  of 
nations  are  divorced  from  the  questions  of  interest. 
Even  Admiral  Mahan  does  not  get  so  far,  since 
he  only  makes  the  "satisfaction  of  the  worthier 
motive**  one  factor  of  several.  Indeed,  in  the  last 
analysis  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  separate  the 
two.  It  may  be  said  of  the  millionaire  who  works 
fourteen  hours  a  day  and  lives  like  a  clerk  in 
order  to  dominate  a  financial  rival,  that  he  is 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    161 

spurred  by  a  psychological  motive— the  desire 
for  mastery  and  domination,  pride,  and  vanity — 
all  the  motives,  in  short,  which  play  so  large  a  part 
in  international  rivalries.  Nevertheless,  the  means 
—practically  the  only  means— of  his  achieving 
his  end  is  material  success — ^by  making  money. 
So  that  whatever  his  motives  may  be,  his  energies 
are  directed  to  filling  his  pockets  just  as  much 
as  though  that  were  the  end  as  well  as  the 
means;  the  millionaire's  material  success  is  the 
mark  and  token  of  his  moral  success.  So  must  it 
be  with  nations.  The  nation  that  in  the  long 
run  fails  to  achieve  economic  success  cannot 
satisfy  its  national  pride;  it  cannot  in  the  modem 
world  impose  itself;  it  cannot  even  maintain 
great  armies  and  great  navies.  It  cannot  in  any 
way  maintain  its  prestige.'  For  this  reason  it 
may  be  taken  as  an  axiom  that  no  nation  of  fair 

*  In  a  discussion  of  this  matter  one  day  the  administrative 
head  of  one  of  the  largest  businesses  in  England  scouted  the 
idea  that  the  making  of  money  was  the  main  motive  of  business 
competition.  "Why  am  I  really  here  in  this  office  twelve  hours 
a  day,  instead  of  fishing  or  playing  golf?  My  income  is  large 
enough  to  enable  me  to  amuse  myself  for  the  balance  of  my  life. 
What  I  am  really  here  for  is  to  prevent  X.  across  the  street 
building  up  a  bigger  and  more  powerful  business  than  ours. " 
To  which  I  replied,  "And  the  condition  of  doing  that  is  that 
you  shall  make  more  money  than  he  does.  You  cannot  make 
this  a  big  business  and  beat  him  unless  you  make  it  an  economic 
success.  You  have  got  to  make  money  or  have  him  beat  you. 
It  all  comes  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end. "  So  far  as  the  case 
is  an  analogy  to  national  competition  the  question  should  be: 
"Would  it  satisfy  your  pride  to  have  it  out  by  fisticuffs,  or  to 


l62 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


political  instruction  will  knowingly  in  the  long 
run  persist  in  a  course  of  action  which  undermines 
its  economic  well-being.  So  again,  in  the  last 
resort,  the  economic  question  lies  purely  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sentimental  question. 

The  matter  is  admittedly  more  complicated 
in  the  field  of  politics  by  factors  which  do  not 
exist  in  the  field  of  business.  There  is  the  unde- 
niable difference  between  men  in  their  collective 
and  individual  capacities;  the  irrationalism  of  the 
** mob  mind";  the  fact  that  a  man  will  in  politics, 
in  a  matter  where  patriotism  is  involved,  act  with 
an  irrationalism  and  an  absence  of  any  sense  of 
responsibility  which  he  would  never  display  in 
the  conduct  of  his  private  business.  The  poUtical 
history  of  every  nation  reeks  with  examples.  In 
politics  old  catch  words  and  ideas  which  are  the 
survival  of  conditions  long  since  vanished  still 
hold  a  sway  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  commercial  business. 

It  may  well  happen,  therefore,  that  even  though 
the  economic  futility  of  military  force  be  fully 
demonstrated,  a  whole  range  of  ideas  which  are 
the  outcome  of  the  old  conditions  will  survive 
in  various  and  elusive  forms.  I  have  tried  by 
going  to  the  most  authoritative  and  most  typical 
literature  of  the  subject,  not  only  to  bring  into 
relief  what  are  commonly  considered  the  outstand- 

stick  a  knife  into  him?    You  have  to  beat  him  in  business,  not  in 
boxing.  •' 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    163 

ing  psychological  motives  for  war,  to  give  some 
definite  form  to  the  feeling  which  exists  as  much 
in  the  minds  of  the  students  of  war  as  in  the 
minds  of  the  mass  of  the  people  who  create 
public  opinion  in  Christendom,  that  war  can  be 
justified  on  other  than  economic  groimds,  and  that 
men  will  find  plenty  of  cause  for  making  war 
even  when  the  economic  motive  for  it  shall  have 
disappeared,  but  to  give  also  the  best  scientific 
defence  or  apologia  of  those  motives.  What  is 
that  defence? 

Man's  tendency  to  fight,  and  especially  his 
tendency  to  fight  for  predominance  and  mastery 
and  to  quarrel  over  matters  affecting  his  pride 
and  prestige  and  vanity,  is  justified  not  only 
as  being  rooted  deep  in  "unchanging  himian 
nature,"— a  universal  instinct  so  deep-seated  that 
no  economic  motive  is  necessary  either  to  provoke 
it  or  keep  it  alive,— but  as  furnishing  the  great 
stimulus  to  our  best  efforts ;  and  it  is  urged  that 
if  we  could  shed  it  human  nature  would  on  the 
whole  be  the  poorer  for  it— that,  in  short,  at  the 
bottom  of  man's  tendency  towards  war  lies  some 
quality  which  makes  for  his  uplift  and  for  his 
material  and  moral  advance.  The  plea  has,  of 
course,  received  definite  scientific  expression  in 
the  works  of  such  philosophers  as  Ratzenhofer, 
Nietzsche,  and  Ram,  and  even  in  the  works  of 
economists  like  De  Molinari,  to  mention  only 
one  or  two  of  the  more  notable.    It  is  urged 


1 

i 


If 

III 


164 


The  Great  Illusion 


that,  whatever  may  be  the  case  to-day,  the  con- 
dition of  man's  advance  in  the  past  has  been  the 
survival  of  the  fit  by  struggle  and  warfare,  and  that 
in  such  struggle  it  is  precisely  those  endowed  with 
combativeness  and  readiness  to  fight  that  have 
survived.  Thus  the  tendency  to  combat  is  not 
a  mere  human  perversity,  but  is  part  of  the  self- 
protective  instinct  rooted  in  profound  biological 
laws — the  struggle  of  nations  for  survival.  This 
point  of  view  is  well  voiced  by  S.  R.  Steinmetz  in 
his  Philosophie  des  Krieges,  War  according  to 
this  author  is  an  ordeal  instituted  by  (jod  who 
weighs  the  nations  in  its  balance.  It  is  the  essential 
form  of  the  State  and  the  only  function  in  which 
peoples  can  employ  all  their  powers  at  once  and 
convergently.  No  victory  is  possible  save  as  the 
resultant  of  a  totality  of  virtues ;  no  defeat  for  which 
some  vice  or  weakness  is  not  responsible.  Fidelity, 
cohesiveness,  tenacity,  heroism,  conscience,  edu- 
cation, inventiveness,  economy,  wealth,  physical 
health,  and  vigour — there  is  hardly  a  moral  or  in- 
tellectual point  of  superiority  that  does  not  tell 
when  "God  holds  his  assizes"  and  hurls  the 
peoples  one  upon  another.  "Die  Weltgeschichte 
ist  das  Weltgericht,'*  and  Dr.  Steinmetz  does 
believe  that,  in  the  long  run,  chance  and  luck  play 
some  part  in  apportioning  the  issues.  And  inter- 
national hostiHty  is  merely  the  psychological  stimu- 
lus to  that  combativeness  which  is  a  necessary 
element  of  struggle;  that  though,  like  other  ele- 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War    165 

mental  instincts — our  animal  appetites,  for  in- 
stance—it may  in  some  of  its  manifestations  be 
ugly  enough,  it  makes  for  survival,  and  is  to 
that  extent  a  part  of  the  great  plan.  It  is  urged 
that  too  great  a  readiness  to  accept  the  friendly 
assurances  of  another  nation  and  an  undue  ab- 
sence of  distrust  would,  by  the  operation  of  a 
sort  of  Gresham  Law  in  international  relation- 
ships, make  steadily  for  the  disappearance  of 
the  himian  and  friendly  commimities  in  favour 
of  the  truculent  and  brutal.  If  friendliness  and 
good  feeling  towards  other  nations  lead  us  to 
relax  our  self -defensive  efforts,  in  the  beUef  that, 
since  we  are  dealing  with  kindly  and  humane 
fellow-men,  we  really  need  not  take  so  much  trouble 
to  defend  ourselves  against  them,  it  is  the  quarrel- 
some communities  which  would  see  in  this  ten- 
dency an  opportunity  to  commit  aggression,  and 
there  would  be  a  tendency,  therefore,  for  the  least 
civilized  to  wipe  out  the  most.  Animosity  and 
hostility  between  nations,  therefore,  is  a  corrective 
of  this  sentimental  slackness,  and  to  that  extent 
it  plays  a  useful  r61e,  however  ugly  it  may  ap- 
pear—"not  pretty,  but  useful,  like  the  dust- 
man." And  though  the  material  and  economic 
motives  which  prompt  conflict  may  no  longer 
obtain,  so  profoimd  is  the  psychological  impetus 
that  other  than  economic  motives  will  be  foimd 
for  collision;  that  if  rivalry  can  no  longer  formu- 
late motives  in  material  questions,  it  will  convert 


i 


It '' 


1 66 


The  Great  Illusion 


the  moral  conflicts  of  mankind  into  causes  of  war, 
and  that  just  as  in  the  past  men  made  such  moral 
differences  as  then  existed  (religious  dogma, 
e.  g.)  causes  of  war,  so  in  our  day  the  moral 
differences  of  nations  will  be  made  to  serve  a 
like  purpose;  that  an  autocratic  Germany  or 
Russia  will  find  sufficient  ground  in  the  defence 
of  its  special  conception  of  national  life  for  at- 
tacking a  Liberal  or  Radical  England  whose  in- 
fluences threaten  autocratic  conceptions  the  world 
over;  or  that  the  fanaticism  and  vanity  of 
Asiatic  races  will  one  day  of  itself  furnish  suffi- 
cient motive  for  attack  upon  a  white  race  which 
in  their  view  makes  arrogant  claims  of  domination 
and  superiority. 

Some  such  view  has  found  lurid  expression  in 
the  recent  work  of  an  American  soldier.  General 
Homer  Lea.'  The  author  urges  not  only  that 
war  is  inevitable,  but  that  any  systematic  attempt 
to  prevent  it  is  merely  an  imwise  meddling 
with  the  universal  law. 

National  entities,  in  their  birth,  activities,  and 
death,  are  controlled  by  the  same  laws  that  govern  all 
life—plant,  animal,  or  national— the  law  of  struggle, 
the  law  of  survival.  These  laws,  so  universal  as 
regards  life  and  time,  so  unalterable  in  causation  and 
consummation,  are  only  valuable  in  the  duration  of 
national  existence  as  the  knowledge  of  and  obedience 
to  them  is  proportionately  true  or  false.     Plans  to 

>  The  Valour  of  Ignorance.  I  understand  that  General  Homer  Lea's 
title  is  based  not  upon  the  command  of  regular  American  but  of  irregular 
Chinese  forces. 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War  167 

thwart  them  to  shortcut  them,  to  circumvent,  to 
cozen,  to  deny,  to  scorn  and  violate  them,  is  folly 
such  as  man's  conceit  alone  makes  possible.  Never 
has  this  been  tried — and  man  is  ever  at  it — but  what 
the  end  has  been  gangrenous  and  fatal. 

In  theory  international  arbitration  denies  the  in- 
exorability of  natural  laws,  and  would  substitute  for 
them  the  veriest  Cagliostroic  formulas,  or  would,  with 
the  vanity  of  Canute,  sit  down  on  the  ocean-side  of 
life  and  command  the  ebb  and  flow  of  its  tides  to 
cease. 

•  The  idea  of .  international  arbitration  as  a  substi- 
tute for  natural  laws  that  govern  the  existence  of 
political  entities  arises  not  only  from  a  denial  of  their 
fiats  and  an  ignorance  of  their  application,  but  from  a 
total  misconception  of  war,  its  causes,  and  its  meaning. 

General  Lea*s  thesis  is  emphasized  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  work  written  by  another  American 
soldier,  General  John  J.  P.  Storey. 

A  few  idealists  may  have  visions  that  with  advanc- 
ing civilization  war  and  its  dread  horrors  will  cease. 
Civilization  has  not  changed  htmian  nature.  The 
nature  of  man  makes  war  inevitable.  Armed  strife 
will  not  disappear  from  the  earth  imtil  human  nature 
changes. 

Many  of  the  defenders  of  war,  indeed,  give  a 
still  further  development  to  the  thought  revealed 
in  these  passages.  They  urge  that  hxmian  nature 
and  human  society  have  not  yet  reached  a  state 
of  development  in  which  they  can  dispense  with 


1" 


I 


1 68 


The  Great  Illusion 


the  moral  discipline  of  war;  that  without  such, 
society  would  lose  its  virility  and  be  in  danger  of 
rotting  from  sheer  feeble  effeminateness  and  lazy 
self-gratification.  Weltstadt  und  Friedensprob- 
lent,  the  book  of  Professor  Baron  Karl  von 
Stengel,  a  jurist,  who  was  one  of  Germany's 
delegates  at  the  first  Hague  Peace  Conference, 
has  a  chapter  entitled  the  "Significance  of  War 
for  Development  of  Humanity,"  in  which  the 
author  says: 

War  has  more  often  facilitated  than  hindered  pro- 
gress. Athens  and  Rome,  not  only  in  spite  of,  but 
just  because  of  their  many  wars,  rose  to  the  zenith  of 
civilization.  Great  States  like  Germany  and  Italy  are 
welded  into  nationalities  only  through  blood  and  iron. 

Storm  purifies  the  air  and  destroys  the  frail  trees, 
leaving  the  sturdy  oaks  standing.  War  is  the  test  of 
a  nation's  political,  physical,  and  intellectual  worth. 
The  State  in  which  there  is  much  that  is  rotten  may 
vegetate  for  a  while  in  peace,  but  in  war  its  weakness 
is  revealed. 

Germany's  preparations  for  war  have  not  resulted 
in  economic  disaster,  but  in  unexampled  economic 
expansion,  unquestionably  because  of  our  demon- 
strated superiority  over  France.  It  is  better  to  spend 
money  on  armaments  and  battleships  than  luxury, 
motormania,  and  other  sensual  living. 

We  know  that  Moltke  expressed  a  like  view  in 
his  famous  letter  to  Bluntschli.  "A  perpetual 
peace,**  declared  the  Field  Marshal,  "is  a  dream 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War  169 

and  not  even  a  beautiful  dream.  War  is  one  of 
the  elements  of  order  in  the  world  established  by 
God.  The  noblest  virtues  of  man  are  developed 
therein.  Without  war  the  world  would  degen- 
erate and  disappear  in  a  morass  of  materialism.**  ^ 
At  the  very  time  that  Moltke  was  voicing  this 
sentiment,  a  precisely  similar  one  was  being  voiced 
by  no  less  a  person  than  Ernest  Renan.  In  his 
La  Reforme  Intellectuelle  et  Morale  (1871,  page 
III)  he  writes: 

If  the  foolishness,  negligence,  idleness,  and  short- 
sightedness of  States  did  not  involve  their  occasional 
collision,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  the  degree  of  de- 
generacy to  which  the  human  race  would  descend. 
War  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  progress,  the  sting  which 
prevents  a  country  from  going  to  sleep,  and  compels 
satisfied  mediocrity  itself  to  awaken  from  its  apathy. 
Man  is  only  sustained  by  effort  and  struggle.  The 
day  that  humanity  achieves  a  great  pacific  Roman 
Empire,  having  no  external  enemies,  that  day  its 
morality  and  its  intelligence  will  be  placed  in  the  very 
greatest  peril. 

In  our  own  times  a  philosophy  not  very  dis- 
similar has  been  voiced  in  the  public  declar- 
ations of  ex-President  Roosevelt.  I  choose  a 
few  phrases  from  his  speeches  and  writings  at 
random: 

« Fpr  precisely  similar  views  in  more  definite  form  see  Ratzen- 
hofer's  Die  sociologische  Erkentniss,  1898,  pages  233,  234. 


170 


r 


The  Great  Illusion 


We  despise  a  nation  just  as  we  despise  a  man  who 
submits  to  insult.  What  is  true  of  a  man  ought  to  be 
true  of  a  nation.' 

We  must  play  a  great  part  in  the  world  and  especially 
.  .  .  perform  those  deeds  of  blood,  of  valour,  which 
above  everything  else  bring  national  renown. 

We  do  not  admire  a  man  of  timid  peace. 

By  war  alone  can  we  acquire  those  virile  qualities 
necessary  to  win  in  the  stem  strife  of  actual  life. 

In  this  world  the  nation  that  is  trained  to  a  career 
of  unwarlike  and  isolated  ease  is  bound  to  go  down  in 
the  end  before  other  nations  which  have  not  lost  the 
manly  and  adventurous  qualities.* 

Exactly  is  this  the  point  of  view  of  an  eminent 
English  publicist,  Mr.  Sidney  Low  {Nineteenth 
Century,  October,  1898) : 

The  Cobdenite  ideal  of  a  State  in  which  every 
citizen  is  ceaselessly  engaged  in  the  ennobling  process 
of  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear  leaves  something  to 
be  desired.  The  accumulation  of  riches  and  the 
steady  pursuit  of  material  comfort  do  not  tend  to  the 
development  of  the  highest  type  of  character. 

Professor  William  James  covers  the  whole 
groimd  of  these  claims  in  the  following  passage: 

« Speech  at  Stationers'  Hall,  June  6,  1910.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
seems  to  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  among  Anglo-Saxons 
the  duel  is  dead.  How  does  he  propose  that  a  man  should 
resent  an  insult  like  a  nation? 

*  The  Strenuous  Life. 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War   171 

The  war  party  is  assuredly  right  in  affirming  that 
the  martial  virtues  although  originally  gained  by  the 
race  through  war  are  absolute  and  permanent  human 
goods.     Patriotic  pride  and  ambition  in  their  military 
form  are,  after  all,  only  specifications  of  a  more  uni- 
versal and  enduring  competitive  passion.     Pacifism 
makes  no  converts  from  the  military  party.     The 
military  party  denies  neither  the  bestiality,  nor  the 
horror,   nor   the  expense;   it   only  says  that  these 
things  tell  but  half  the  story.     It  only  says  that  war 
is  worth  these  things ;  that  taking  human  nature  as  a 
whole,  war  is  its  best  protection  against  its  weaker 
and  more  cowardly  self,  and  that  mankind  cannot 
afford  to  adopt  a  peace-economy.  .  .  .     Militarism  is 
the  great  preserver  of  our  ideals  of  hardihood,  and 
htmaan  life  without  hardihood  would  be  contemptible. 
.  .  .  This  natural  feeling  forms,  I  think,  the  inner- 
most soul  of  oiir   army  writings.     Without  any  ex- 
ception known  to  me,  miUtarist  authors  take  a  highly 
mystical  view  of  their  subject  and  regard  war  as 
a  biological  and  sociological  necessity.  .  .  .  Our  an- 
cestors have  bred  pugnacity  into  our  bone  and  marrow 
and  thousands  of  years  of  peace  won't  breed  it  out  of 
us.     {McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1910.) 

Even  famous  English  clergymen  have  voiced 
the  same  view.  Charles  Kingsley,  in  his  defence 
of  the  Crimean  War  as  a  *'just  war  against 
tyrants  and  oppressors,"  wrote:  **For  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  the  Prince  of  Peace,  he  is 
the  Prince  of  War,  too.  He  is  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
the  God  of  armies,  and  whoever  fights  in  a  just 


I 


¥. 


■I 
i 


172 


The  Great  Illusion 


war  against  tyrants  and  oppressors,  he  is  fighting 
on  Christ's  side,  and  Christ  is  fighting  on  his 
side.  Christ  is  his  captain  and  his  leader,  and 
he  can  be  in  no  better  service.  Be  sure  of  it,  for 
the  Bible  tells  you  so." » 

Canon  Newbolt,  Dean  Farrar,  the  Archbishop 
of  Armagh,  have  all  written  not  dissimilarly. 

The  whole  case  may  be  resumed  thus: 

Reasoning  inductively :  All  the  evidence  bearing 
on  the  relations  between  nations  shows  that  those 
relations  always  have  been  in  part  marked  by  a 
hostility  in  which  merely  material  interest  or 
cool  reason  may  have  no  apparent  or  direct 
bearing ;  which  may  on  the  surface  indeed  appear 
illogical  and  reasonless.  That  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  this  characteristic  of  the  relations 
between  states  ever  has  been  or  is  being  greatly 
modified;  that  it  is  more  in  complete  accord  with 
what  we  know  of  the  everlasting  unchangeability 
of  human  nature;  that  the  warlike  nations  inherit 
the  earth,  and  that  the  peaceful  ones  decline  and 
degenerate. 

Reasoning  deductively:  Since  struggle  is  the 
law  of  life  and  a  condition  of  survival  as  much 
with  nations  as  with  other  organisms,  pugnacity, 
which  is  merely  intense  energy  in  struggle,  a  readi- 

« Thomas  Hughes  in  his  preface  to  the  first  English  edition  of 
the  Bigelow  Papers  refers  to  the  opponents  of  the  Crimean  War 
as  a  "vain  and  mischievous  clique,  who  amongst  us  liave  raised 
the  ciy  of  peace."  See  also  Mr.  Hobson's  Psychology  of 
Jingoism,  p.  52. 


The  Psychological  Case  for  War   173 

ness  to  accept  struggle  in  its  acutest  form,  must 
necessarily  be  a  quality  marking  those  individuals 
successful  in  the  vital  contests.    A  nation  which, 
though  in  other  respects  superior  to  its  neigh- 
bours, lacks  that  capacity  and  readiness  for  strug- 
gle which  pugnacity  and  combativeness  imply,  is 
wiped  out  and  replaced  by  it  may  be  an  inferior 
but  more  pugnacious  rival,  so  that  in  the  matter 
of  pugnacity  it  is  not  necessarily  the  best  which 
set  the  standard ;  it  may  well  be  the  worst  since 
the  best  have  to  be  as  pugnacious  as  any  rival 
which   threatens  them.     It  is  this  deep-seated 
biological  law  which  renders  impossible  the  accept- 
ance by  mankind  of  the  literal  injimction  to  turn 
the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter,  or  for  htiman  nature 
ever  to  conform  to  the  ideal  implied  in  that  in- 
junction, since,  were  it  accepted,  the  best  men 
and  nations— in  the  sense  of  the  kindliest  and  most 
humane — ^would  be  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the 
most  brutal,  who,  eliminating  the  least  brutal, 
would  stamp  the  survivors  with  the  character  of 
the  worst,  and  the  qualities  of  the  militarist  would 
remain  in  any  case.     And  for  this  reason  a  readi- 
ness to  fight,  which  means  the  qualities  of  rivahy 
and  pride  and  combativeness,  hardiness,  tenacity, 
and  heroism, — ^what  we  know  as  the  manly  quali- 
ties,— must  in  any  case  survive  as  the  race  sur- 
vives, and  since  they  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
predominance  of  the  purely  brutal,  are  a  neces- 
sary part  of  the  highest  morality. 


i\ 


174 


The  Great  Illusion 


Despite  the  apparent  force  of  these  two  propo- 
sitions, they  are  founded  upon  a  profound  illusion, 
and  upon  a  gross  misreading  of  all  the  facts  of 
the  case. 


CHAPTER  II 

OUTLINE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  CASE  FOR  PEACE 

The  illusion  on  which  conclusions  of  preceding  chapter  are  based 
— ^The  real  law  of  man's  struggle:  struggle  with  Nature,  not 
with  other  men — Mankind  is  the  organism  struggling  to  adapt 
itself  to  its  environment,  the  planet — Such  struggle  always 
involves  greater  complexity  of  organism,  closer  co-ordination 
of  parts — Outline  sketch  of  man's  advance  and  main  operating 
factor  therein — The  progress  towards  elimination  of  physical 
force — Co-operation  across  frontiers  and  its  psychological 
result — Impossible  to  fix  limits  of  commimity — Such  limits 
irresistibly  expanding — Break-up  of  State  homogeneity — 
State  limits  no  longer  coinciding  with  real  conflicts  between 
men. 

THE  case  outlined  in  the  preceding  chapter 
reposes  inductively,  therefore,  on  an  alleged 
series  of  facts  generalized  respectively  in  these 
two: 

(i)  The  unchangeability  of  human  nattire  in 
the  matter  of  pugnacity ; 

(2)  The  survival  of  the  warlike  nations  of  the 

world ;  and 

Deductively,  on  the  general  law  drawn  there- 
from that,  as  Struggle  is  the  law  of  man's  sur- 
vival, pugnacity  is  explained  by  the  condition 

175 


Si 


176 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  that  survival:  the  less  pugnacious  are  elimin- 
ated in  favour  of  the  more ;  or,  expressed  otherwise, 
pugnacity  is  a  form  of  energy  in  that  struggle, 
a  useful  stimulus  therein.  This  is  at  once  the 
scientific  explanation  and  the  scientific  justifi- 
cation of  the  plea  for  the  virile  qualities  favouring 
warfare,  and  for  rejecting  any  expectation  that 
pugnacity  between  nations  will  seriously  diminish, 
or  that  the  process  of  man's  development  makes 
for  its  extinction. 

In  reply  to  the  above  case,  I  have  written  four 
chapters  attempting  to  show : 

(i)  That  the  alleged  unchangeability  of  human 
nature  is  not  a  fact,  and  all  the  evidence  is  against 
it  {e,  g.,  the  disappearance,  or  at  least  the  attenua- 
tion, of  the  temper  which  leads  us  to  enforce  our 
religious  belief  on  others ;  and  of  the  temper  which 
produced  the  duel) ; 

(2)  That  the  warlike  nations  do  not  inherit 
the  earth ; 

(3)  That  physical  force  is  a  constantly  dimin- 
ishing factor  in  human  affairs;  that  this  involves 
profoimd  psychological  modifications ;  and 

(4)  That  the  increasing  factor  is  co-operation, 
and  that  this  factor  tends  to  attenuate  state 
divisions  which  in  no  way  represent  the  limits  of 
that  co-operation. 

The  first  two  chapters  present  the  facts  of  the 
case;  the  second  two  the  factors,  displaying  the 
general   law   underlying   and   defining    the   real 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  177 

character  of  man's  struggle  and  advance,  and  the 
psychological  development  involved  therein. 

The  illusion  underlying  the  case  detailed  in 
the  preceding  chapter  and  outlined  above  arises 
from  the  indiscriminate  application  of  scientific 
formula.  Struggle  is  the  law  of  survival  with 
man,  as  elsewhere,  but  it  is  the  struggle  of  man 
with  the  universe,  not  man  with  man.  ' *  Dog  does 
not  eat  dog."  Even  tigers  do  not  live  on  one 
another;  they  live  on  their  prey.  The  planet 
is  man's  prey.  Man's  struggle  is  the  struggle 
of  the  organism,  which  is  human  society,  in  its 
adaptation  to  its  environment,  the  world — not 
the  struggle  between  different  parts  of  the  same 
organism.  * 

The  error  here  indicated  arises,  indeed,  from 
mistaking  the  imperfect  working  of  different 
parts  of  the  same  organism  for  the  conflict  of 
individual  organisms.  Britain  to-day  supports 
forty  millions  in  greater  comfort  than  it  supported 
twenty  a  little  over  half  a  century  ago.    This  has 

*  Since  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  this  book  there 
has  appeared  in  France  an  admirable  work  by  Mr.  J.  Novikow, 
Le  Darwinisme  Social,  in  which  this  application  of  the  Dar- 
winian theory  to  sociology  is  discussed  with  great  ability  and 
at  great  length  and  in  full  detail.  Mr.  Novikow  has  established 
in  biological  terms  what,  previous  to  the  publication  of  his  book, 
I  attempted  to  establish  in  economic  terms.  The  real  applica- 
tion of  the  biological  law  to  human  society  had,  moreover, 
already  been  partly  anticipated,  in  correcting  some  of  the  con- 
clusions drawn  by  Spencer  and  Huxley,  by  Professor  Karl  Pearson 
{The  Grammar  of  Science^  pp.  433-438), 


178 


The  Great  Illusion 


been  accomplished,  not  by  the  various  groups — 
Scots,  English,  Welsh,  Irish — preying  upon  one 
another,  but  by  exactly  the  reverse  process: 
closer  co-operation  between  themselves  and  with 
populations  outside. 

That  mankind  as  a  whole  represents  the 
organism  and  the  planet  the  environment,  to 
which  he  is  more  and  more  adapting  himself, 
is  the  only  conclusion  that  consorts  with  the 
facts.  If  struggle  between  men  is  the  true 
reading,  those  facts  are  absolutely  inexplicable, 
for  he  is  drifting  away  from  conflict,  from  the 
use  of  physical  force  and  towards  co-operation. 
This  much  is  unchallengeable,  as  the  facts  which 
follow  will  show. 

But  in  that  case,  if  struggle  for  extermination 
of  rivals  between  men  is  the  law  of  life,  mankind 
is  setting  at  naught  the  natural  law,  and  must  be 
on  its  way  to  extinction. 

Happily  the  natural  law  in  this  matter  has  been 
misread.  Man  in  his  sociological  aspect  is  not 
the  complete  organism.  The  man  who  attempts 
to  live  without  association  with  his  fellows,  dies. 
Nor  is  the  nation  the  complete  organism.  If 
Britain  attempted  to  live  without  co-operation 
with  other  nations,  half  the  population  would 
starve.  The  completer  the  co-operation,  the 
greater  the  vitality;  the  more  imperfect  the  co- 
operation, the  less  the  vitality.  Now  a  body,  the 
various  parts  of  which  are  so  interdependent  that 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  179 

without  co-ordination  vitality  is  reduced  or  death 
ensues,  must  be  regarded,  in  so  far  as  those  func- 
tions are  concerned,  not  as  a  collection  of  rival 
organisms,  but  as  one.  This  is  in  accord  with  what 
we  know  of  the  character  of  living  organisms  in 
their  conflict  with  environment.  The  higher  the 
organism,  the  greater  the  elaboration  and  inter- 
dependence of  its  parts,  the  greater  the  need  for 
co-ordination. ' 

If  we  take  this  as  the  reading  of  the  biological 
law,  the  whole  thing  becomes  plain:  man's  irre- 
sistible drift  away  from  conflict  and  towards 
co-operation  is  but  the  completer  adaptation  of 
the  organism  (man)  to  its  environment  (the 
planet,  wild  nature),  resulting  in  a  more  intense 
vitality. 

The  foregoing  is  the  law  stated  biologically. 

The  psychological  development  involved  in 
man's  struggle  along  these  lines  may  best  be 
stated  by  an  outline  sketch  of  the  character  of 
his  advance. 

When  I  kill  my  prisoner  (cannibalism  was  a 
very  common  characteristic  of  early  man),  it  is 
in  ** human  nature*'  to  keep  him  for  my  own 

*  Co-operation  does  not  exclude  competition.  If  a  rival  beats 
me  in  business,  it  is  because  he  furnishes  more  efficient  co-opera- 
tion than  I  do;  if  a  thief  steals  from  me,  he  is  not  co-operating 
at  all,  and  if  he  steals  much  will  prevent  my  co-operation.  The 
organism  (society)  has  every  interest  in  encouraging  the  com- 
petitor and  suppressing  the  parasite. 


i8o 


The  Great  Illusion 


larder.     It  is  the  extreme  form  of  the  use  of  force, 
the  extreme  form  of  human  individualism.     But 
putrefaction  sets  in  before  I  can  consume  him 
(it  is  as  well  to  recall  these  real  difficulties  of  the 
early  man,  because,  of  course,  "hvmian  nature 
does  not  change"),  and  I  am  left  without  food. 
But  my  two  neighbours,  each  with  his  butchered 
prisoner,  are  in  like  case,  and  though  I  could 
quite  easily  defend  my  larder,  we  deem  it  better 
on  the  next  occasion  to  join  forces  and  kill  one 
prisoner  at  a  time.     I  share  mine  with  the  other 
two;  they  share  theirs  with  me.    There  is  no 
waste  through  putrefaction.     It  is  the  earliest 
form  of  the  stirrender  of  the  use  of  force  in  favour 
of   co-operation — the   first    attenuation    of    the 
tendency  to  act  on  impulse.     But  when  the  three 
prisoners  are  consumed,  and  no  more  happen  to 
be  available,  it  strikes  us  that  on  the  whole  we 
should  have  done  better  to  make  them  catch 
game  and  dig  roots  for  us.    The  next  prisoners 
that  are  caught  are  not  killed,  a  further  diminu- 
tion of  impulse  and  the  factor  of  physical  force, 
they  are  only  enslaved,  and  the  pugnacity  which 
in  the  first  case  went  to  kill  them  is  now  diverted 
to  keeping  them  at  work.     But  the  pugnacity 
is  so  little  controlled  by  rationalism  that  the 
slaves  starve,  and  in  an  access  of  hunger  become 
unmanageable.    They  are  better  treated;  there 
is  a  diminution  of  pugnacity.    They  become  suffi- 
ciently manageable  for  the  masters  themselves, 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  i8i 

while  the  slaves  are  digging  roots,  to  do  a  little 
hunting.    The  pugnacity  recently  expended  on  the 
slaves  is  redirected  to  keeping  hostile  tribes  from 
capturing  them — a  difficult  matter,  because  the 
slaves  themselves  show  a  disposition  to  try  a 
change   of    mastership.     They    are   bribed   into 
good  behaviour  by  better  treatment:  a  further 
diminution    of    force,    a    further    drift    towards 
co-operation;  they  give  labour,  we  give  food  and 
protection.    As  the  tribes  enlarge,  it  is  found 
that  those  have  most  cohesion  where  the  position 
of  slaves  is  recognized   by  definite  rights  and 
privileges.     Slavery  becomes  serfdom  or  viUeiny. 
The  lord  gives  land  and  protection,  the  serf  labour 
and  military  service:  a  further  drift  from  force, 
a  further  drift   towards  co-operation,  exchange. 
With  the  introduction  of  money  even  the  form 
of  force  disappears:  the  labourer  pays  rent  and  the 
lord  pays  his  soldiers.     It  is  free  exchange  on  both 
sides,  and  economic  force  has  replaced  physical 
force.  And  the  further  the  drift  from  force  towards 
simple  economic  interest  the  better  the  result 
for  the  effort  expended.    The  Tartar  khan  who 
seizes  by  force  the  wealth  in  his  State,  giving  no 
adequate  return,  soon  has  none  to  seize.     Men 
will  not  work  to  create  what  they  cannot  enjoy,  so 
that,  finally,  the  khan  has  to  kill  a  man  by  torture 
to  obtain  a  sum  which  is  the  thousandth  part 
of  what  a  London  tradesman  will  spend  to  secure 
a  title  carrying  no  right  to  the  exercise  of  force 


I82 


The  Great  Illusion 


from  a  sovereign  who  has  lost  all  right  to  the 
use  or  exercise  of  physical  force,  the  head  of  the 
wealthiest  country  in  the  world,  the  sources  of 
whose  wealth  are  the  most  removed  from 
any  process  involving  the  exercise  of  physical 
force. 

But  while  this  process  is  going  on  inside  the 
tribe,  or  group,   or    nation,  force  and  hostility 
as  between  differing  tribes  or  nations  remain; 
but  not  undiminished.     At  first  it  suffices  for 
the  fuzzy  head  of  a  rival  tribesman  to  appear 
above  the  bushes  for  primitive  man  to  want  to 
kill  it.    He  is  a  foreigner:  kill  him.     Later  he  only 
wants  to  kill  him  if  he  is  at  war  with  his  tribe. 
There  are  periods  of  peace:  diminution  of  hostil- 
ity.    In  the  first  conflicts  all  of  the  other  tribe 
are  killed— men,  women,  and  children.    Force  and 
pugnacity  are   absolute.     But  the  use  of  slaves 
both  as  labourers  and  as  concubines  attenuates 
this:  there  is  a  diminution  of  force.     The  women 
of  the  hostile  tribe  bear  children  by  the  conqueror : 
there  is  a  diminution  of  pugnacity.    At  the  next 
raid  into  the  hostile  territory  it  is  found  that  there 
is  nothing  to  take,  because  everything  has  been 
killed  or  carried  off.     So  on  later  raids  the  con- 
queror kiUs  the  chiefs  only  (a  further  diminution 
of  pugnacity,  a  further  drift  from  mere  impulse), 
or  merely  dispossesses  them  of  their  lands  and 
divides  them   among    the    conquerors    (Norman 
Conquest   type).     We  have  abready  passed  the 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  183 

stage  of  extermination.'  The  conqueror  simply 
absorbs  the  conquered— or  the  conquered  ab- 
sorbs the  conqueror,  whichever  you  like.  It  is 
no  longer  the  case  of  one  gobbHng  up  another. 
Neither  is  gobbled.  In  the  next  stage  we  do  not 
even  dispossess  the  chiefs— a  further  sacrifice 
of  physical  force— we  merely  impose  tribute. 
But  the  conquering  nation  soon  finds  itself  in 

•Without  going  to  the  somewhat  obscure  analogies  of  bio- 
logical science,  it  is  evident  from  the  simple  facts  of  the  world 
that  if  at  any  stage  of  human  development  warfare  ever  did 
make  for  the  survival  of  the  fit,  we  have  long  since  passed  out 
of  that  stage.  When  we  conquer  a  nation  in  these  days,  we 
do  not  exterminate  it.  We  leave  it  where  it  was.  When  we 
"overcome"  the  servile  races,  far  from  eliminating  them,  we  give 
them  added  chances  of  life  by  introducing  order,  etc.,  so 
that  the  lower  human  quality  tends  to  be  perpetuated  by  con- 
quest by  the  higher.  If  it  ever  happens  that  the  Asiatic  races 
challenge  the  white  in  the  industrial  or  military  field,  it  will  be 
in  large  part  thanks  to  the  work  of  race  conservation  which  has 
been  the  result  of  England's  conquest  in  India,  Egypt,  and  Asia 
generally,  and  her  action  in  China  when  she  imposed  commercial 
contact  with  the  Chinese  by  virtue  of  military  power.  War 
between  people  of  roughly  equal  development  makes  also  for  the 
survival  of  the  unfit,  since  we  no  longer  exterminate  and  massacre 
a  conquered  race,  but  only  their  best  elements  (those  carrying 
on  the  war),  and  because  the  conqueror  uses  up  his  best  elementr. 
in  the  process,  so  that  the  less  fit  of  both  sides  are  left  to  per- 
petuate the  species.  Nor  do  the  facts  of  the  modem  world  lend 
any  support  to  the  theory  that  preparation  for  war  under  modem 
conditions  tends  to  preserve  virility,  since  those  conditions  in- 
volve an  artificial  barrack  life,  a  highly  mechanical  training 
tending  to  the  destruction  of  initiative,  and  a  mechanical  uniform- 
ity and  centralization  tending  to  cmsh  individuality,  and  accen- 
tuating the  drift  towards  a  centralized  bureaucracy  already  too 
great. 


iMHIM 


1 84 


The  Great  Illusion 


the  position  of  the  khan  in  his  own  State— the 
more  he  squeezes  the  less  he  gets,  until  finally 
the  cost  of  getting  the  money  by  military  means 
exceeds  what  is  obtained.  It  is  the  case  of  Spain 
in  Spanish  America — the  more  territory  she 
"owned"  the  poorer  she  became.  The  wise  con- 
queror, then,  finds  that  better  than  the  exaction 
of  tribute  is  an  exclusive  market — old  EngHsh 
colonial  type.  But  in  the  process  of  ensuring  ex- 
clusivity more  is  lost  than  is  gained:  the  colonies 
are  allowed  to  choose  their  own  system — further 
drift  from  the  use  of  force,  further  drift  from  hostil- 
ity and  pugnacity.  Final  result :  complete  aban- 
donment of  physical  force,  co-operation  on  basis  of 
mutual  profit  the  only  relationship,  with  reference 
not  merely  to  colonies  which  have  become  in  fact 
foreign  States,  but  also  to  States  foreign  in  name 
as  well  as  in  fact.  We  have  arrived  not  at  the 
intensification  of  the  struggle  between  men,  but 
at  a  condition  of  vital  dependence  upon  the  pros- 
perity of  foreigners.  Could  England  by  some 
magic  kill  all  foreigners,  half  the  British  popula- 
tion would  starve.  This  is  not  a  condition  ma- 
king indefinitely  for  hostihty  to  foreigners;  still 
less  is  it  a  condition  in  which  such  hostility 
finds  its  justification  in  any  real  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  or  in  any  deep-seated  biological 
law.  With  each  new  intensification  of  depen- 
dence between  the  parts  of  the  organism  must 
go   that   psychological   development   which   has 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  185 

marked  every  stage  of  progress  in  the  past,  from 
the  day  that  we  killed  our  prisoner  in  order 
to  eat  him,  and  refused  to  share  him  with  our 
fellow,  to  the  day  that  the  telegraph  and  the  bank 
have  rendered  military  force  economically  futile. 

But  the  foregoing  does  not  include  all  the  facts, 
or  all  the  factors.     If  Russia  does  England  an 
injury — sinks  a  fishing  fleet  in  time  of  peace  for 
instance — ^it    is   no    satisfaction    to    Englishmen 
to    go   out    and    kill    a   lot    of    Frenchmen    or 
Irishmen.     The  English   want  to  kill   Russians. 
But  if  they  knew  a  little  less  geography,  if  for 
instance  they  were  Chinese  Boxers,  it  would  not 
matter  the  least  in  the  w^orld  which  they  killed, 
because   to   the   Chinaman   all   alike   would   be 
*' foreign  devils":  his  knowledge  of  the  case  does 
not  enable  him  to  differentiate  between  the  vari- 
ous nationalities  of  Europeans.     In  the  case  of  a 
wronged  negro  in  the  Congo  the  collective  re- 
sponsibility is  still  wider;    for  a  wrong  inflicted 
by  one  white  man  he  will  avenge  himself  on  any 
other — German,  English,  French,  Dutch,  Belgian, 
or  Chinese.     As    our   knowledge   increases,  our 
sense  of  the  collective  responsibility  of  outside 
groups  narrows.     But  immediately  we  start  on 
this   differentiation  there  is  no  stopping.     The 
yokel  is  satisfied  if  he  can  "get  a  whack  at  them 
foreigners" — Germans  will  do  if  Russians  are  not 
available.     The  more  educated  man  wants  Rus- 
sians; but  if  he  stops  a  moment  longer  he  will 


1 86 


The  Great  Illusion 


see  that   in  killing  Russian  peasants  he   might 
as   well   be   kHling   so   many   Hindoos,   for    all 
they  had  to  do  with  the  matter.     He  then  wants 
to  get  at  the  Russian  Government.     But  so  do  a 
great  many  Russians— Liberals,  Reformers,  etc. 
He  then  sees  that  the  real  conflict  is  not  English 
against  Russians  at  all,  but  the  interest  of  all 
law-abiding  folk— Russian    and  EngHsh  alike— 
against  oppression,  corruption,  and  incompetence. 
And  to  give  the  Russian  Government  an  oppor- 
tunity of  going  to  war  would  only  strengthen  its 
hands  against  those  with  whom  the  English  were 
in  sympathy— the  Reformers.    As  war  would  in- 
crease the  influence  of  the  reactionary  party  in 
Russia,  it  would  do  nothing  to  prevent  the  re- 
currence of  such  incidents,  and  so  quite  the  wrong 
party  would  suffer.     Were  the  real  facts  and  the 
real  responsibilities  understood,  a  Liberal  people 
would   reply   to   such   an   aggression  by   taking 
every   means    which    the   social    and   economic 
relationship  of  the  two  States  affords  to  enable 
Russian  Liberals  to  hang  a  few  Russian  admirals 
and  establish  a  Russian  Liberal  Government.     In 
any  case  the  realization  of  the  facts  attenuates 
English   hostiHty.      In    the    same    way,    as  the 
real  facts  of  the  case  become  more  familiar  will 
hostility  to   Germans   be  attenuated.     English- 
men will  realize  that  many  Germans  are  just  as 
much  opposed  as  they  are  to  German  naval  ag- 
gression.   Englishmen  will  not  want  to  kill  tlwse 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  187 

Germans  at  least.  Englishmen  will  want  to  help 
them  realize  their  anti-naval  plans.  The  capacity 
for  differentiation  in  this  sense  is  fatal  to  any 
sustained  hostility  between  large  nations.  Inter- 
national hostilities  repose  for  the  most  part  upon 
our  conception  of  the  foreign  State  with  which 
we  are  quarrelling  as  a  homogeneous  personality 
having  the  same  characteristic  of  responsibility  as 
an  individual,  whereas  the  variety  of  community 
interests,  both  material  and  moral,  regardless  of 
State  boimdaries,  renders  the  analogy  between 
nations  and  individuals  an  utterly  false  one. 

Indeed,  where  the  co-operation  between  the 
parts  of  the  social  organism  is  as  complete  as  our 
mechanical  development  has  recently  made  it,  it  is 
impossible  to  fix  the  limits  of  the  community,  and 
to  say  what  is  one  commimity  and  what  is  another. 
Certainly  the  State  limits  no  longer  define  the 
limits  of  the  community;  and  yet  it  is  only  the 
State  limits  which  international  antagonism  predi- 
cates. If  the  Louisiana  cotton  crop  fails,  a  part 
of  Lancashire  starves.  There  is  closer  commun- 
ity of  interest  in  a  vital  matter  between  Lanca- 
shire and  Louisiana  than  between  Lancashire  and, 
say,  the  Orkneys,  part  of  the  same  State.  There  is 
much  closer  intercommunication  between  Britain 
and  the  United  States  in  all  that  touches  social 
and  moral  development  than  between  Britain  and, 
say,  Bengal,  part  of  the  same  State.  An  English 
nobleman  has  more  community  of  thought  and 


1 88 


The  Great  Illusion 


feeling  with  a  European  Continental  aristocrat 
(will  marry  his  daughter,  for  instance)  than  he 
would  think  of  claiming  with  such  "fellow" 
British  countrymen  as  a  Bengal  babu,  a  Jamaica 
negro,  or  even  a  Dorset  yokel.  A  professor  at 
Oxford  will  have  closer  community  of  feeling 
with  a  member  of  the  French  Academy  than 
with,  say,  a  Whitechapel  publican.  One  may  go 
further  and  say  that  a  British  subject  of  Quebec 
has  closer  contact  with  Paris  than  with  London; 
the  British  subject  of  Dutch-speaking  Africa 
with  Holland  than  with  England;  the  British 
subject  of  Hong  Kong  with  Pekin  than  with 
London;  of  Egypt  with  Constantinople  than  with 
London,  and  so  on.  In  a  thousand  respects 
association  cuts  across  State  boundaries,  which 
are  purely  conventional,  and  renders  the  biological 
division  of  mankind  into  independent  and  warring 
States  a  scientific  ineptitude. 

Allied  factors,  introduced  by  the  character  of 
modem  intercourse,  have  already  gone  far  to 
render  territorial  conquest  futile  for  the  satis- 
faction of  natural  human  pride  and  vanity.  Just 
as  in  the  economic  sphere  factors  peculiar  to  our 
generation  have  rendered  the  old  analogy  as 
between  State  and  persons  a  false  one,  so  do 
these  factors  render  the  analogy  in  the  sentimental 
sphere  a  false  one.  While  the  individual  of  great 
possessions  does  in  fact  obtain,  by  reason  of  his 
wealth,  a  deference  which  satisfies  his  pride  and 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  189 

vanity,  the  individual  of  the  great  nation  has  no 
such  sentimental  advantage  as  against  the  citizen 
of   the  small.     No  one  thinks  of  respecting   a 
Russian  mujik  because  he  belongs   to   a  great 
nation,  or  despising  a  Scandinavian  or  Belgian 
gentleman  because  he  belongs  to  a  small  one; 
and  any  society  will  accord  prestige  to  the  noble- 
man of   Norway,   Holland,   Belgitmi,   Spain,   or 
even  Portugal,  where  it  refuses  it  to  an  English 
"boimder.*'    The  nobleman  of  any  country  will 
marry  the  noblewoman  of  another  more  readily 
than  a  woman  from  a  lower  class  of  his  own 
coimtry.     The  prestige  of   the  foreign  country 
rarely  counts  for  anything  in  the  matter  when  it 
comes  to  the  real  facts  of  everyday  life,  so  shallow 
is  the  real  sentiment  which  now  divides  States. 
Just  as  in  material  things  community  of  interest 
and  relationship  cut  clear  across  State  boundaries, 
so  inevitably  will  the  psychic  commimity  of  inter- 
est come  so  to  do. 

Just  as  in  the  material  domain  the  real  bio- 
logical law,  which  is  association  and  co-operation 
between  individuals  of  the  same  species  in  the 
struggle  with  their  environment,  has  pushed  men 
in  their  material  struggle  to  conform  with  that 
law,  so  wiU  it  do  so  in  the  sentimental  sphere.  We 
shall  come  to  realize  that  the  real  psychic  and 
moral  divisions  are  not  as  between  nations  but  as 
between  opposing  conceptions  of  Hfe.  Though  it 
is  unlikely  that  man's  nattire  will  ever  lose  the 


tg6 


The  Great  Illusion 


combativeness,  hostility,  and  animosity  which  are 
so  large  a  part  of  it  (although  the  manifestations  of 
such  feeling  have  so  greatly  changed  within  the 
historical  period  as  almost  to  have  changed  in 
character),  what  we  shall  see  is  the  diversion  of 
those  psychological  qualities  to  the  real  instead 
of  the  artificial  conflict  of  mankind.    We  shall  see 
that  at  the  bottom  of  any  conflict  between  the 
armies  or  governments  of  Germany  and  England 
lies  not  the  opposition  of  *' German"  interests  to 
** English**    interests,  but    the  conflict  in  both 
States    between  democracy    and    autocracy,  or 
between  Socialism  and  Individualism,  or  reaction 
and  progress,  however  one's  sociological  sympa- 
thies may  classify  it.     That  is  the  real  division  in 
both  countries,  and  for  Germans  to  conquer  Eng- 
lish   or   English,  Germans,  would  not    advance 
the   solution   of   such  a  conflict  one   iota;  and 
as  such  conflict  becomes  acuter,  the  German  in- 
dividualist will  see  that  it  is  more  important  to 
protect  his  freedom  and  property  against   the 
Socialist  and  trade  tmionist,  who  can  and  are  at- 
tacking them,  than  against  the  British  army,  which 
cannot.     In  the  same  way  the  British  Tory  will 
be  more  concerned  with  what  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
Budgets   can   do   than   with  what  the  Germans 
can  do.     And  from  the  reaHzation  of  that  fact 
to   the  reaHzation   on   the  part   of   the  British 
democrat  that  what  stands  in  the  way  of  his 
securing  for  social  expenditure  enormous  sums 


The  Psychological  Case  for  Peace  191 

that  now  go  to  armaments  is  mainly  a  lack  of 
co-operation  between  himself  and  the  democrats 
of  a  hostile  nation  who  are  in  a  like  case,  is  but 
a  step,  and  a  step  that,  if  history  has  any  meaning, 
is  bound  shortly  to  be  taken,  and  when  it  is  taken, 
property,  capital,  Individualism  will  have  to  give 
to  its  international  organization,  already  far- 
reaching,  a  still  more  definite  form,  in  which 
international  differences  will  play  no  part.  And 
when  that  condition  is  reached,  both  States  will 
find  inconceivable  the  idea  that  artificial  State 
divisions  (which  are  coming  more  and  more  to 
approximate  to  mere  administrative  divisions, 
leaving  free  scope  within  them  or  across  them  for 
the  development  of  genuine  nationality)  could 
ever  in  any  way  define  the  real  conflicts  of 
mankind. 

There  remains,  of  course,  the  question  of  time : 
that  these  developments  will  take  "thousands"  or 
**h\mdreds"  of  years.  Yet  the  interdependence 
of  modem  nations  is  the  growth  of  little  more 
than  fifty  years.  A  century  ago,  England  could 
have  been  self-supporting  and  little  the  worse  for  it. 
One  must  not  overlook  the  Law  of  Acceleration. 
Man  probably  dates  from  the  Tertiary  Period' 
— three  hundred  thousand  years.  He  has  devel- 
oped more  in  the  last  three  thousand  than  in  the 
preceding  two  himdred  and  ninety-seven  thousand, 

« I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Novikow's  admirable  Darwinisnu 
Social  for  this  illustration. 


192 


The  Great  Illusion 


and  more  in  the  last  three  hundred  than  in  the 
preceding  three  thousand,  and  in  some  respects 
more  in  the  last  fifty  than  in  the  preceding  two 
hundred  ninety-nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
fifty.  We  see  more  change  now  in  ten  years 
than  originally  in  ten  thousand.  Who  shall  fore- 
tell the  developments  of  a  generation? 


CHAPTER  III 


UNCHANGING  HUMAN  NATURE 

llie  progress  from  cannibalism  to  Herbert  Spoicer — The 
disappearance  of  religious  oppression  by  government — 
Disappearance  of  the  duel  —  The  Crusaders  and  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  —  The  wail  of  militarist  writers  at  man's  drift 
away  from  militancy. 

WE  have  seen  (Chapter  I.,  Part  II.)  that  the 
psychological  case  against  peace  reposes 
a  priori  upon  the  alleged  unchangeability  of 
human  nature — the  alleged  persistence,  notably, 
of  those  forms  of  pugnacity  which  lead  to  fight 
and  quarrel.  All  of  us,  who  have  had  occasion 
to  discuss  this  subject,  are  familiar  with  the  catch 
phrases  with  which  the  whole  matter  is  so  often 
dismissed:  "You  cannot  change  human  nature," 
**What  man  always  has  been  dining  thousands 
of  years,  he  alw^ays  will  be,"  are  the  sort  of  dicta 
delivered  generally  as  self-evident  propositions  that 
do  not  need  discussion.  Or  if ,  in  deference  to  the 
fact  that  very  profound  changes  in  which  hmnan 
naXwce  is  involved  have  taken  place  in  the  habits 
of  mankind,  the  statement  of  the  proposition  is 
somewhat  less  dogmatic,  we  are  given  to  under- 

X93 


194 


The  Great  Illusion 


Stand  that  any  serious  modification  of  the  tendency 
to  go  to  war  can  only  be  looked  for  in  "thousands 
of  years." 

What  are  the  facts?  They  are  these: 
That  the  alleged  unchangeability  of  human 
nature  in  this  matter  is  not  true;  that  man's 
pugnacity,  though  not  disappearing,  is  very 
visibly,  under  the  forces  of  mechanical  and  social 
development,  being  transformed  and  diverted 
from  ends  that  are  wasteful  and  destnictive  to 
ends  that  are  less  wasteful,  which  render  easier 
that  co-operation  between  men  in  the  struggle 
with  their  environment  which  is  the  condition  of 
their  survival  and  advance;  that  changes  which, 
in  the  historical  period,  have  been  extraordinarily 
rapid  are  necessarily  quickened — quickened  in 
geometrical  rather  than  arithmetical  ratio  by 
virtue  of  the  law  of  motion  which  we  know  as  the 
Law  of  Acceleration. 

With  very  great  courtesy,  one  is  impelled  to 
ask  those  who  argue  that  human  nature  in  all 
its  manifestations  must  remain  unchanged,  how 
they  interpret  history.  We  have  seen  man  pro- 
gress from  the  mere  animal  fighting  with  other 
animals,  seizing  his  food  by  force,  seizing  also 
by  force  his  females,  eating  his  own  kind,  the  sons 
of  the  family  struggling  with  the  father  for  the 
possession  of  the  father's  wives ;  we  have  seen  this 
incoherent  welter  of  animal  struggle  at  least  partly 
abandoned  for  settled  industry,  and  partly  surviv- 


Unchanging  Human  Nature 


195 


ing  as  a  more  organized  tribal  warfare  or  a  more 
ordered  pillaging,  like  that  of  the  Vikings  and  the 
Huns;  we  have  seen  even  these  pillagers  abandon 
in  part  their  pillaging  for  ordered  industry,  and 
in  part  for  the  more  ceremonial  conflict  of  feudal 
struggle;  we  have  seen  even  the  feudal  conflict 
abandoned  in  favour  of  dynastic  and  religious 
and  territorial  conflict,  and  then  dynastic  and 
religious  conflict  abandoned,  and  there  remains 
now  only  the  conflict  of  States,  and  that,  too,  at 
a  time  when  the  character  and  conception  of 
the  State  is  being  radically  and  profoundly 
modified. 

Pari  passu  with  this  collective  progress,  from 
the  preying  of  one  animal  upon  another,  has 
gone  on  a  like  progress  in  individual  conduct. 
For  aeons  man's  life  and  property  depended  upon 
his  club  or  a  well-aimed  stone,  then  upon  a  flint 
hatchet,  then  upon  a  sword,  then  upon  indi- 
vidual fight  hedged  round  with  the  form  of  law, 
and  finally  upon  none  of  these  things,  but  upon 
law  alone.  And  to  our  ancestor  the  notion  that 
he  could  ever  depend  upon  anything  but  his 
strong  right  arm  for  the  defence  of  his  property 
woidd  have  appeared  as  absurd  as  does  the  notion 
of  international  dependence  upon  law  to  our 
patriots  to-day.  And  even  to-day,  outside  the 
Anglo-Saxon  worid,  while  the  individual  does  not 
defend  his  property  by  arms,  he  does  so  defend 
his  honour. 


196 


The  Great  Illusion 


Human  nature  may  not  change,  whatever  that 
vague  phrase  may  mean ;  but  human  nature  is  a 
complex  factor.  It  is  made  up  of  numberless 
motives,  many  of  which  are  modified  in  relation 
to  the  rest  as  circimistances  change;  so  that  the 
manifestations  of  human  nature  change  out  of 
all  recognition.  Do  we  mean  by  the  phrase  that 
**  human  nature  does  not  change  "  that  the  feel- 
ings of  the  paleolithic  man  who  ate  the  bodies  of 
his  enemies  and  of  his  own  children  are  the  same 
as  those  of  a  Herbert  Spencer,  or  even  of  the 
modem  Londoner  who  catches  his  train  to  town 
in  the  morning?  And  if  human  nature  does  not 
change,  may  we  therefore  expect  the  city  clerk 
to  brain  his  mother  and  serve  her  up  for 
dinner,  or  suppose  that  Lord  Roberts  or  Lord 
Kitchener  is  in  the  habit,  while  on  campaign,  of 
catching  the  babies  of  his  enemies  on  spear-heads, 
or  driving  his  motor  car  over  the  bodies  of  yotmg 
girls,  in  the  fashion  that  the  leaders  of  the  old 
Northmen  drove  their  ox  wagons  over  the  bodies 
of  their  enemies*  womenkind? 

What  do  these  phrases  mean?  These  and  many 
like  them  are  repeated  in  a  knowing  way  with  an 
air  of  great  wisdom  and  profundity  by  journalists 
and  writers  of  repute,  and  one  may  find  them 
blatant  any  day  in  our  own  newspapers  and  re- 
views; yet  the  most  cursory  examination  proves 
them  to  be  neither  wise  nor  profoimd,  but  simply 
a  parrot-like  repetition  of  catch-phrases  which 


Unchanging  Human  Nature 


197 


lack  common-sense  and  fly  in  the  face  of  facts 
of  everyday  experience. 

The  truth  is  that  the  facts  of  the  world  as  they 
stare  us  in  the  face  show  that  in  our  common 
attitude  we  not  only  overlook  the  modifications 
in  human  nature  which  have  occurred  historically 
since  yesterday— occurred  even  in  our  generation 
--but  that  we  ignore  the  modification  of  "hirnian 
nature"  which  mere  difference  of  social  habit 
and  custom  and  outlook  effect.  Take  the  case 
of  the  duel.  Even  educated  people  in  Germany, 
France,  Italy,  will  tell  you  that  it  is  *'not  in 
human  nature"  to  expect  a  man  of  gentle  birth 
to  abandon  the  habit  of  the  duel;  the  notion  that 
honourable  people  shotdd  ever  so  place  their 
honour  at  the  mercy  of  whoever  may  care  to 
insult  them  is,  they  assure  you,  both  childish  and 
sordid.  With  them  the  matter  will  not  bear 
discussion. 

Yet  the  great  societies  which  exist  in  England, 
North  America,  Australia— the  whole  Anglo- 
Saxon  world,  in  fact— have  abandoned  the  duel, 
and  we  cannot  lump  the  whole  Anglo-Saxon  race 
as  either  sordid  or  childish. 

That  such  a  change  as  this  which  must  have 
collided  with  human  pugnacity  in  its  most  insid- 
ious  form,  pride  and  personal  vanity,  the  tradi- 
tions of  an  aristocratic  status— every  one  of  the 
psychological  factors  now  involved  in  inter- 
national conflict— has  been  effected  in  our  own 


/ 


198 


The  Great  Illusion 


generation  should  surely  give  pause  to  those  who 
dismiss  as  chimerical  any  hope  that  rationalism 
will  ever  dominate  the  conduct  of  nations.    Yet, 
profound  as  is  this  change,  a  still  more  universal 
change,  affecting  still  more  nearly  our  psycho- 
logical impulses,  has  been  effected  within  a  rela- 
tively recent  historical  period.     I   refer   to  the 
abandonment  by  the  governments  of  Europe  of 
their  right  to  enforce  the  reUgious  beHef  of  their 
citizens.    For  htuidreds  of  years,  generation  after 
generation,  it  was  regarded  as  an  evident  part 
of  a  ruler's  right  and  duty  to  dictate  what  his 
subjects  should  believe.    And  this  originated  not 
merely  from  a  thirst  for  oppression  on  the  part 
of    the   governments,    but   also   from   the   fact 
that  the  governments  realized  that  if  parties  in 
the   State   having   religious   opinions  hostile   to 
their  own  became  powerful,  they  would  utilize 
that  influence  to  replace  rulers  hostile  in  religious 
opinion   to  themselves  by   rulers  of  their  own 
belief.     The    more    purely    instructive    motive 
of  fanaticism  was   therefore  reinforced   by   the 
more  rational  motives  of  statecraft — the  motives, 
indeed,  of  political  self-defence.     **It  is  not  that 
I  want  to  prevent  Protestants  worshipping  God 
as   they   please,**    argued    the  Liberal  Catholic, 
"but  if  the  Protestant  gets  the  upper  hand  he 
will  cut  my  throat,  or  at  least  turn  all  Catholics 
from  power.     It  is  in  human  nature  that  he  should 
do  so.    It  is  asking  too  much  to  assume  that  if 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       199 

our  religious  rivals  get  the  power  to  dominate 
us,  they  will  not  use  it.  Of  course  they  will. 
You  cannot  ask  us  to  commit  poHtical  and  re- 
ligious suicide,  and  as  we  have  the  force,  we  must 
use  it.  It  is  the  law  of  life."  And  from  this 
reasoning  arose  hecatomb  on  hecatomb — all  the 
long  series  of  reHgious  wars  which  swept  over 
Europe.  Any  one  who  should  have  argued  that 
the  differences  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 
were  not  such  as  force  could  settle,  and  that  the 
time  would  come  when  man  would  realize  this 
truth,  and  regard  a  religious  war  between  Eu- 
ropean States  as  a  wild  and  unimaginable  ana- 
chronism, would  have  been  put  down  as  a  futile 
doctrinaire,  completely  ignoring  the  most  element- 
ary facts  of  "Unchanging  Human  Nature.*' 

There  is  one  striking  incident  of  the  religious 
struggle  of  States  which  illustrates  vividly  the 
change  which  has  come  over  the  spirit  of  man. 
For  nearly  two  hundred  years  Christians  fought 
the  Infidel  for  the  conquest  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 
All  the  nations  of  Eiurope  joined  in  this  great 
endeavour.  It  seemed  to  be  the  one  thing  which 
could  unite  them,  and  for  generations,  so  profound 
was  the  impulse  which  affected  the  movement, 
the  struggle  went  on.  There  is  nothing  in  history, 
perhaps,  quite  comparable  to  it.  Suppose  that 
diiring  this  struggle  one  had  told  a  European 
statesman  of  that  age,  that  the  time  would  come 
when,  assembled  in  a  room,  the  representatives 


200 


The  Great  Illusion 


m 


* 


of  a  Europe  which  had  made  itself  the  absolute 
master  of  the  Infidel  could  by  a  single  stroke  of 
the  pen  have  secured  the  Holy  Sepulchre  for  all 
time  to  Christendom,  but  that,  having  discussed 
the  matter  cursorily  twenty  minutes  or  so  would 
decide  that  on  the  whole  it  was  not  worth 
while !  Had  such  a  thing  been  told  to  such  mediae- 
val statesman,  he  would  certainly  have  regarded 
the  prophecy  as  that  of  a  madman.  Yet  this, 
of  course,  is  precisely  what  took  place. 

But  perhaps  the  very  strongest  evidence  that 
the  whole  drift  of  human  tendencies  is  away  from 
such  conflict  as  is  represented  by  war  between 
States  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  those  who 
declare  war  to  be  inevitable.  Among  the  writers 
quoted  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  section,  there 
is  not  one  who,  if  his  arguments  are  examined 
carefully,  does  not  show  that  he  realizes,  con- 
sciously or  subconsciously,  that  man's  disposition 
to  fight,  far  from  being  unchanged,  is  becoming 
rapidly  enfeebled.  Take,  for  instance,  the  latest 
work  voicing  the  philosophy  that  war  is  inevita- 
ble; that,  indeed,  it  is  both  wicked  and  childish  to 
try  and  prevent  it.'  Notwithstanding  that  the 
inevitability  of  war  is  his  thesis,  he  entitles  the 
first  section  of  his  book  "The  Decline  of  Mili- 
tancy," and  shows  clearly,  in  fact,  that  the  com- 

'  See  quotations  p.  150  from  General  Lea's  book,  Tke  Valour 
of  Ignorance. 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       201 

mercial  activities  of  the  world  lead  directly  away 
from  war: 

''Trade,  ducats,  and  mortgages  are  regarded 
as  far  greater  assets  and  sources  of  power  than 
armies  or  navies.  They  produce  national  effemi- 
nacy and  effeteness." 

Now,  as  this  tendency  is  common  to  all  nations 
of  Christendom,  indeed,  of  the  world,  since  com- 
mercial and  industrial  development  is  world- 
wide, it  necessarily  means,  if  it  is  true  of  any  one 
nation,  that  the  world  as  a  whole  is  drifting  away 
from  the  tendency  to  warfare. 

A  large  part  of  General  Lea's  book  is  a  sort  of 
Carlylean  girding  at  what  he  terms  "protoplasmic 
gourmandizing  and  retching"  (otherwise  the 
busy  American  industrial  and  social  life  of  his 
coimtrymen).  He  declares  that,  when  a  country 
makes  wealth  production  and  industries  its  sole 
aim,  it  becomes  "a  glutton  among  nations,  vulgar, 
swinish,  arrogant " ;  "commercialism,  having  seized 
hold  of  the  American  people,  overshadows  it,  and 
tends  to  destroy  not  only  the  aspirations  and  world- 
wide career  open  to  the  nation,  but  the  RepubHc 
itself."  "Patriotism  in  the  true  sense"  (i.  e.,  the 
desire  to  go  and  kill  other  people)  General  Lea 
declares  almost  dead  in  the  United  States.  The 
national  ideals,  even  of  the  native-bom  American, 
are  deplorably  low: 

There  exists  not  only  individual  prejudice  against 


202 


The  Great  Illusion 


^ 


military  ideals,  but  public  antipathy;  antagcmism  of 
politicians,  newspapers,  churches,  colleges,  labour 
unions,  theorists,  and  organized  societies.  They 
combat  the  military  spirit  as  if  it  were  a  public  evil 
and  a  national  crime. 

But  in  that  case,  what  in  the  name  of  all 
that  is  muddle-headed  comes  of  the  "unchang- 
ing tendency  towards  warfare '7  What  is  all 
this  curious  rhetoric  of  General  Lea's  (and  I 
have  dealt  with  him  at  some  length,  because 
his  principles  if  not  his  language  are  those 
animating  much  similar  literatiire  in  England, 
France,  Germany,  and  the  Continent  of  Europe 
generally)  but  an  admission  that  the  whole  ten- 
dency is  not,  as  he  would  have  us  believe,  towards 
war,  but  away  from  it?  Here  is  an  author  who 
tells  us  that  war  is  to  be  for  ever  inevitable,  and 
in  the  same  breath  that  men  are  rapidly  conceiv- 
ing not  only  a  "slothful  indifference"  to  fighting, 
but  a  profoimd  antipathy  to  the  military  ideal. 

Of  course  General  Lea  implies  that  this  ten- 
dency is  peculiar  to  the  American  Republic  and  is 
for  that  reason  dangerous  to  his  country;  but,  as 
a  matter  of  fact  General  Lea's  book  might  be  a 
free  translation  of  much  nationalist  literature  of 
either  France  or  Germany.  I  caimot  recall  a  single 
author  of  either  of  the  four  great  countries  who, 
treating  of  the  inevitability  of  war,  does  not 
bewail  the  falling  away  of  his  own  country  from 
the  military  ideal,  or,  at  least,  the  tendency  so 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       203 

to  fall  away.  Thus  the  English  journalist  re- 
viewing in  the  Daily  Mail  General  Lea*s  book 
caimot  refrain  from  saying: 

Is  it  necessary  to  point  out  that  there  is  a  moral 
in  all  this  for  us  as  well  as  for  the  American?  Surely 
almost  all  that  Mr .  Lea  says  applies  to  Great  Britain 
as  forcibly  as  to  the  United  States.  We  too  have 
lain  dreaming.  We  have  let  our  ideals  tarnish.  We 
have  grown  gluttonous,  also.  .  .  .  Shame  and 
folly  are  upon  us  as  well  as  upon  our  brethren.  Let 
us  hasten  with  all  our  energy  to  cleanse  otirselves  of 
them,  that  we  can  look  the  future  in  the  face  without 
fear. 

Exactly  the  same  note  dominates  the  literattire 
of  a  protagonist  like  Mr.  Blatchford.  He  talks 
of  the  "fatal  apathy"  of  the  British  people;  "the 
people,"  he  says,  breaking  out  in  anger  at  the 
^  small  disposition  they  show  to  kill  other  peo- 
ple "are  conceited,  self-indulgent,  decadent,  and 
greedy.  They  will  shout  for  the  Empire,  but 
they  will  not  fight  for  it."'  A  glance  at  such 
publications  as  Blackwood's,  the  National  Review, 
the  Spectator,  the  World,  will  reveal  precisely 
similar  outbm*sts. 

Of  course,  Mr.  Blatchford  declares  that  the 
Germans  are  very  different,  and  that  what  General 
Lea  (in  talking  of  his  country)  calls  the  "gour- 
mandizing  and  retching"  is  not  at  all  true  of 

*  Germany  and  England,  p.  19. 


204 


The  Great  Illusion 


Germany.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the 
phrase  I  have  quoted  might  have  been  "lifted" 
from  the  work  of  any  average  pan-German,  or 
even  from  more  responsible  quarters.  Have  Mr. 
Blatchford  and  General  Lea  forgotten  that  no  less 
a  person  than  Prince  von  Bulow,  in  a  speech 
made  in  the  Prussian  Diet,  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
use  ahnost  the  words  I  have  quoted  from  Mr. 
Blatchford,  and  dwelt  at  length  on  the  self- 
indulgence  and  degeneracy,  the  rage  for  luxury, 
etc.,  which  possess  modem  Germany,  and  told 
how  the  old  qualities  which  had  marked  the 
founders  of  the  Empire  were  disappearing?' 

Indeed,  do  not  a  great  part  of  the  governing 
classes  of  Germany  almost  daily  bewail  the 
infiltration  of  anti-militarist  doctrines  among  the 
German  people,  and  does  not  the  extraordinary 
increase  in  the  Socialist  vote  justify  the  complaint? 
A  precisely  analogous  plea  is  made  by  the 
NationaHst  writer  in  France  when  he  rails  at  the 
pacifist  tendencies  of  his  country,  and  points  to 
the  contrasting  warlike  activities  of  neighbouring 
nations.  A  glance  at  a  copy  of  practically  any 
NationaHst  or  Conservative  paper  in  France  will 
furnish  ample  evidence.  Hardly  a  day  passes 
but  that  the  Echo  de  Paris,  Gaulois,  Figaro,  Journal 
des  DSbats,  Patrie,  or  Presse  does  not  sound  this 

» See  the  first  chapter  of  Mr.  Harbutt  Dawson's  admirable 
work,  The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany, 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       205 

note,  while  one  may  find  it  rampant  in  the  works 
of  such  serious  writers  as  Paul  Bourget,  Barr^, 
Faguet,  Bruneti^re,  Paul  Adam,  to  say  nothing  of 
more  popular  publicists  like  D^roulMe,  Millevoye, 
Drumont,  etc. 

All  these  advocates  of  war,  therefore, — ^Ameri- 
can, English,  German,  French, — are  at  one  in  de- 
claring that  foreign  countries  are  very  warlike, 
but  their  own  country  "simk  in  sloth,"  drifting 
away  from  war.  But  as,  presumably,  they  know 
more  of  their  own  country  than  of  others,  their 
own  testimony  therefore  involves  mutual  de- 
struction of  their  own  theories.  They  are  thus 
unwilling  witnesses  to  the  truth,  which  is  that  we 
are  all  alike — ^English,  Americans,  Germans, 
French — losing  the  psychological  impulse  to  war, 
just  as  we  have  lost  the  psychological  impulse  to 
kill  otir  neighbours  on  account  of  reHgious  differ- 
ences, or  (at  least,  in  the  case  of  the  Anglo-Saxon) 
to  kill  our  neighbours  in  duel  for  some  cause  of 
wounded  vanity. 

How,  indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise?  How  can 
modem  life,  with  its  overpowering  proportion 
of  industrial  activities  and  its  infinitesimal  pro- 
portion of  military,  keep  alive  the  instincts  asso- 
ciated with  war  as  against  those  developed  by 
peace? 

Not  alone  evolution  but  common-sense  and 
common  observation  teach  us  that  we  develop 
most   those   qualities  which   we   exercise  most, 


2o6 


The  Great  Illusion 


which  serve  us  best  in  the  occupation  on  which 
we  are  most  engaged.  A  race  of  seamen  is  not 
developed  by  agrioiltural  pursuit  carried  on 
hundreds  of  miles  from  the  sea. 

Take  the  case  of  what  is  reputed  (quite  wrongly, 
incidentally)  to  be  the  most  military  nation  in  Eu- 
rope— Germany.  The  immense  majority  of  adult 
Germans— speaking  practically,  all  who  make  up 
what  we  know  as  Germany — ^have  never  seen  a 
battle,  and  in  all  human  probability  never  will. 
In  forty  years  eight  thousand  Germans  have 
been  in  the  field  about  twelve  months— against 
naked  blacks.'  So  that  the  proportion  of  war- 
like activities  as  compared  with  peaceful  activi- 
ties works  out  at  one  as  against  hundreds 
of  thousands.  I  wish  it  were  possible  to  illus- 
trate this  diagrammatically ;  but  it  could  not 
be  done  in  this  book,  because  if  a  single  dot, 
the  size  of  a  full-stop,  were  to  be  used  to  illustrate 
the  expenditure  of  time  in  actual  war,  I  should 
have  to  fill  most  of  the  book  with  dots  to  illustrate 
the  time  spent  by  the  balance  of  the  population 
in  peace  activities.  ^ 

'  I  have  excluded  the  "  operations  "  with  the  allies  In  China. 
But  they  only  lasted  a  few  weeks.  And  are  they  war  ?  This 
illustration  appears  in  Mr,  Novikow's  Darwinisme  Social. 

»  The  most  recent  opinion  on  evolution  would  go  to  show  that 
environment  plays  an  even  larger  r61e  in  the  formation  of  char- 
acter than  selection.  (See  Prince  Kropotkin's  article,  Ninetetnth 
Century,  July,  1910,  in  which  he  shows  that  experiment  reveals 
the  direct  action  of  surroundings  as  the  main  factor  of  evolution.) 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       207 

In  that  case,  how  can  we  possibly  expect  to  keep 
alive  warlike  qualities,  when  all  our  interests  and 
activities — all  our  environments,  in  short — are 
peace-like  ? 

In  other  words,  the  occupations  which  develop 
the  qualities  of  industry  and  peace  are  so  much 
in  excess  of  those  which  would  develop  the  qual- 
ities we  associate  with  war  that  such  excess  has 
almost  now  passed  beyond  any  ordinary  means 
of  visual  illustration,  and  has  entirely  passed  be- 
yond any  ordinary  human  capacity  fully  to  ap- 
preciate. How  can  we  expect  the  survival  of 
qualities  which,  according  to  the  military  pundits, 
are  closely  associated  with  an  occupation  the 
immense  majority,  even  in  the  case  of  nations 
reputed  warlike,  never  undertake,  as  against 
qualities  associated  with  the  occupations  which 
are  those  of  practically  all,  practically  every  day? 
Peace  is  with  us  now  nearly  always;  war  is  with 
us  rarely,  yet  we  are  told  that  it  is  the  qualities 
of  war  which  will  survive,  and  the  qualities  of 
peace  which  will  be  subsidiary. 

I  am  not  forgetting,  of  course,  the  military 
training,  the  barrack  life,  which  is  to  keep 
alive  the  military  tradition.  I  have  dealt  with 
the  question  in  the  next  chapter.  It  suffices 
for  the  moment  to  note  that  such  training  is 
justified  on  the  ground   (notably  among  those 

How   immensely,  therefore,  must  our   industrial   environment 
modify  the  pugnacious  impulse  of  our  nature ! 


4 


i 


f 


208 


The  Great  Illusion 


who  would  introduce  it  into  England)--(i)  That 
it  ensures  peace;  (2)  renders  a  population  more 
efficient  in  the  art  of  peace— that  is  to  say, 
perpetuates  the  condition  of  "slothful  ease''  which 
we  are  told  is  so  dangerous  to  our  characters,  in 
which  we  are  bound  to  lose  the  '  Varlike  qualities," 
^f  ^^ich  renders  society  still  more  "gourman- 
dizing"  in  General  Lea's  contemptuous  phrase, 
still  more  "Cobdenite"  in  Mr.  Sidney  Low's. 
One  cannot  have  it  both  ways.  If  long-continued 
peace  is  enervating,  it  is  mere  self-stultiiication  to 
plead  for  conscription,  on  the  ground  that  it  will 
still  further  prolong  that  enervating  condition. 
If  Mr.  Sidney  Low  sneers  at  industrial  society  and 
the  peace  ideal— "the  Cobdenite  ideal  of  buying 
cheap  and  seUing  dear''— he  must  not  defend 
German  conscription  (though  he  does)  on  the 
ground  that  it  renders  German  commerce  more 
efficient— that,  in  other  words,  it  advances  that 
"Cobdenite  ideal."  In  that  case,  the  drift  away 
from  war  will  be  stronger  than  ever.  Perhaps 
some  of  all  this  inconsistency  was  in  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's  mind  when  he  declared  that  by  "war 
alone"  can  man  develop  those  many  qualities,  etc. 
If  conscription  really  does  prolong  peace  and 
increase  our  aptitude  for  the  arts  of  peace,  then 
conscription  itself  is  but  a  factor  in  man's  tem- 
peramental drift  away  from  war,  in  the  change  of 
his  nature  towards  peace. 

It  is  not  because  man  is  degenerate  or  swinish  or 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       209 

gluttonous  (such  language,  indeed,  applied  as  it  is 
by  General  Lea  to  the  larger  and  better  part  of  the 
human  race,  suggests  a  not  very  high-minded  ill- 
temper  at  the  stubbornness  of  facts  which  rhetoric 
does  not  affect)  that  he  is  showing  less  and  less 
disposition  to  fight,  but  because  he  is  condemned 
by  the  real  "primordial  law"  to  earn  his  bread  in 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,  and  his  nature  in  conse- 
quence develops  those  quahties  which  the  bulk 
of  his  interests  and  capacities  demand  and  favoiu-. 

These  are  the  facts  of  the  world  as  we  know  it 
to-day.  Of  course,  it  is  always  open  to  the  dog- 
matic to  declare,  as  he  does  declare,  that  the 
emotional  habits  of  a  lifetime  will  go  for  nothing 
when  national  pride  is  affronted,  or  when  national 
honour  needs  vindication.  Again,  the  dogmatist 
of  this  sort  is  so  apt  to  overlook  what  actually 
has  taken  place. 

Discussing  this  subject  in  London  recently, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  remarked:  "We  despise  a  nation 
just  as  we  despise  a  man  who  fails  to  resent  an 
insult"' — this  as  justification  for  large  national 
armaments.  Mr.  Roosevelt  seems  to  forget  that 
the  duel  with  us  is  extinct.  Do  we,  the  English- 
speaking  people  of  the  world,  to  whom  presumably 
Mr.  Roosevelt  must  have  been  referring,  despise 
a  man  who  fails  to  resent  an  insult  by  arms? 
Would  we  not,  on  the  contrary,  despise  the  man 

»  Speech  at  Stationers'  Hall,  June  6,  1910. 


■I  \ 


i 


2IO 


The  Great  Illusion 


Unchanging  Human  Nature 


211 


f 


who  should  do  so?  Yet,  as  I  have  pointed  out 
earlier  in  this  chapter,  so  recent  is  this  change  that 
it  has  not  yet  reached  the  majority  of  Continental 
people.  But  if  this  reform  has  been  effected  in 
the  case  of  the  individual,  why  on  earth  should 
it  be  a  manifest  impossibility  to  bring  about  an 
analogous  habit  of  mind  among  governments  and 
peoples,  most  especially  when  we  remember  that 
when  individuals  fight  a  duel  at  least  the  indivi- 
duals who  have  quarrelled  fight,  whereas  in  the 
case  of  a  nation,  thousands  of  EngHshmen  may 
be  slaughtered  in  a  quarrel  with  Germany,  in 
which  a  great  many  Germans  take  the  English 
view.  In  fact,  this  overlapping  of  views,  in  which 
division  of  opinion  follows  more  and  more  the 
divisions  of  political  philosophy  rather  than  of 
political  frontiers,  is  the  characteristic  of  most 
modem  wars.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  hold 
an  entire  nation  collectively  responsible  for  the 
action  of  its  Government,  and  educated  people 
are  coming  more  and  more  the  world  over  to 
realize  this  fact. 

Even  when  harmless  fishermen  are  sunk  by 
incompetent  or  drunken  Russian  naval  officers, 
opinion  in  England  differentiates  between  the 
Government  and  the  people;  there  is  certainly  no 
ill-feeling  again  the  Russian  Reformers,  engaged 
at  the  time  in  a  struggle  with  their  own  Govern- 
ment to  put  an  end  to  that  very  condition  of 
things  which  made  the  Hull  outrage  possible;  and 


the  English  people  realized  thoroughly  that  the 
Russian  people  as  a  whole  could  not  beheld 
responsible  for  the  outrage.  The  same  realization 
of  the  facts  will  go  more  and  more  to  modify  that 
senseless  notion  of  the  collective  responsibiHty  of 
an  entire  nation  for  the  acts  of  its  Government 
which  we  seem  to  have  borrowed  from  the 
Chinese,  who,  if  the  real  author  of  a  murder  can- 
not be  found,  hang  his  brother  or  his  son. 

This  phase  of  the  subject — the  false  representa- 
tion of  a  whole  nation  of,  it  may  be,  one  htindred 
million  people  as  a  homogeneous  personality — 
belongs  to  another  section  of  the  case.'  But  I 
refer  to  it  here  as  bearing  on  the  relation  between 
the  old  code  of  the  duel,  which,  in  so  far  as  Anglo- 
Saxons  are  concerned,  has  passed  away,  and  the 
still  existent  but  happily  modifying  code  of 
national  honour.  The  vague  talk  of  national 
honour  as  a  quality  under  the  especial  protection 
of  the  soldier  shows,  perhaps  more  clearly  than 
aught  else,  how  much  our  notions  concerning  in- 
ternational politics  have  fallen  behind  the  notions 
that  dominate  us  in  everyday  life.  When  an 
individual  begins  to  rave  about  his  honour,  we 
may  be  pretty  sure  he  is  about  to  do  some  irra- 
tional, most  likely  disreputable,  deed.  The  word 
is  like  an  oath,  serving  with  its  vague  yet  large 
meaning  to  intoxicate  the  fancy.     Its  vagueness 

« See  Chapter  VI  of  this  section. 


212 


The  Great  Illusion 


and  elasticity  make  it  possible  to  regard  a  given 
incident  at  will  as  either  harmless  or  a  casus  belli. 
Our  sense  of  proportion  in  these  matters  approxi- 
mates to  that  of  the  schoolboy.  The  passing  jeer 
of  a  foreign  journalist,  a  foolish  cartoon,  is  suf- 
ficient to  start  the  dogs  of  war  baying  up  and 
down  the  land.'  We  call  it  "maintaining  the 
national  prestige,"  ** enforcing  respect,"  and  I 
know  not  what  other  high-sounding  name.  But 
it  amoimts  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end. 

The  one  distinctive  advance  in  civil  society 
achieved  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  is  fairly 
betokened  by  the  passing  away  of  this  old  notion 
of  a  pecuHar  possession  in  the  way  of  honour 
which  has  to  be  guarded  by  arms.  It  stands  out 
as  the  one  clear  moral  gain  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury; and,  when  we  observe  the  notion  resurging 
in  the  minds  of  men,  we  may  reasonably  expect 
to  find  that  it  marks  one  of  those  reversions  in  the 
ongoing  of  moral  development  which  so  often 
occur  in  the  realm  of  mind  as  well  as  in  that  of 
organic  forms. 

But  two  or  three  generations  since  this  progress, 
even   among  Anglo-Saxons,   towards   a  rational 

*  I  have  in  mind  here  the  ridiculous  furore  that  was  made  by 
the  Jingo  Press  over  some  French  cartoons  that  appeared  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Boer  War.  It  will  be  remembered  that  at  that 
time  France  was  the  "enemy,"  and  Germany  was,  on  the  strength 
of  a  speech  by  Mr.  Chamberlain,  a  quasi-ally.  We  were  at  that 
times  as  warlike  towards  France  as  we  are  now  towards  Germany, 
And  this  is  barely  ten  years  ago! 


Unchanging  Human  Nature 


213 


standard  of  conduct  in  this  matter,  as  between 
individuals,  would  have  seemed  as  tmreasonable 
as  do  the  hopes  of  international  peace  in  our  day. 
Even  to-day  the  Continental  officer  is  as  firmly 
convinced  as  ever  that  the  maintenance  of  per- 
sonal dignity  is  impossible  save  by  the  help  of 
the  duel.    Such  will  ask  in  triumph,  '*What  wiU 
you  do  if  one  of  your  own  order  openly  insult 
you?    Shall   you  preserve  your  self-resepct   by 
summoning  him  to  the  police-court?"    And  the 
question  is  taken  as  settling  the  matter  off-hand. 
The  survival,  where  national  prestige  is  con- 
cerned, of  the  standards  of  the  code  duello  is  daily 
brought  before  us  by  the  rhetoric  of  the  patriots. 
Our  army  and  our  navy,  not  the  good  faith  of  our 
statesmen,   are  the   *' guardians  of  our  national 
honour."     Like  the  duellist,  the  patriot  would 
have  us  believe  that  a  dishonourable  act  is  made 
honourable  if  the  party  suffering  by  the  dishonour 
be  killed.     The  patriot  is  careful  to  withdraw  from 
the  operation  of  possible  arbitration  all  questions 
which  could  affect  the  ''national  honour."    An 
''insult  to  the  flag"  must  be  "wiped  out  in  blood. " 
Small  nations,  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  can- 
not so  resent  the  insults  of  great  empires,  have 
apparently  no  right  to  such  a  possession  as  "hon- 
oiir."     It  is  the  pecuHar  prerogative  of  world- 
wide  empires.     The    patriots    who    would    thus 
resent  "insults  to  the  flag"  may  well  be  asked 
whether  they  would  condemn  the  conduct  of  the 


214 


The  Great  Illusion 


German  lieutenant  who  kills  the  unarmed  civilian 
in  cold  blood  *'for  the  honour  of  the  uniform. " 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  struck  the  patriot  that, 
as  personal  dignity  and  conduct  have  not  suffered 
but  been  improved  by  the  abandonment  of  the 
principle  of  the  duel,  there  is  litttle  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  international  conduct  or  national  dig- 
nity would  suffer  by  a  similar  change  of  standards. 

The  whole  philosophy  underlying  the  duel  where 
personal  relations  are  concerned  excites  in  our  day 
the  infinite  derision  of  all  Anglo-Saxons.  Yet 
these  same  Anglo-Saxons  maintain  it  as  vigorously 
as  ever  in  the  relations  of  States. 

In  view  of  changes  as  psychologically  profound 
as  these,  what  justification  have  we  for  the  com- 
mon dogmatism  that  "thousands  of  years"  or 
"htmdreds  of  years"  must  separate  us  from  inter- 
national Rationalism.^  "Thousands  of  years" 
takes  us  back  to  primitive  savagery  in  Great 
Britain;  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  to  the  approval 
of  slavery  and  belief  in  witchcraft.*  In  1775 
slavery  was  regarded  as  indispensable  to  the 
prosperity  of  England.  Fifty  years  later  it  was 
regarded  as  the  very  worst  of  evils,  and  this  change 
of  opinion  was  effected  in  fifty  years  mainly 
through  the  intellectual  work  of  two  or  three 

*  Thomasius  calculated  that  during  the  seventeenth  century  a 
hundred  thousand  persons  were  burned  as  witches  in  Germany 
alone.  The  English  Act  of  Parliament  punishing  witchcraft  was 
only  repealed  in  1745. 


Unchanging  Human  Nature       215 

men.  Less  than  half  a  century  ago  Russia  still 
preserved  one  of  the  worst  forms  of  feudalism. 
To-day  she  has  a  ParHamentary  Constitution. 
In  1830  a  ship  going  from  Marseilles  to  Con- 
stantinople still  ran  the  risk  of  pillage  by  pirates. 
Those  who  talk  thus  seem  to  take  no  account 
of  the  Law  of  Acceleration,  as  true  in  the  domain 
of  sociology  as  of  physics,  which  I  have  touched 
on  at  the  close  of  the  preceding  chapter.  The 
most  recent  evidence  would  seem  to  show  that 
man  as  a  fire-using  animal  dates  back  to  the 
Tertiary  epoch — say,  three  himdred  thousand 
years.  Now,  in  all  that  touches  this  discussion, 
man  in  Northern  Europe  (in  Great  Britain,  say) 
remained  unchanged  for  two  htmdred  and  ninety- 
eight  thousand  of  those  years.  In  the  last  tw^o 
thousand  years  he  changed  more  than  in  the  two 
hundred  and  ninety-eight  thousand  preceding, 
and  in  one  himdred  he  has  changed  more  perhaps 
than  in  the  preceding  two  thousand.  The  com- 
parison becomes  more  understandable  if  we 
resolve  it  into  hours.  For,  say,  fifty  years  the 
man  was  a  cannibal  savage  or  a  wild  animal, 
himting  other  wild  animals,  and  then  in  the  space 
of  three  months  he  became  John  Smith  of  Surbi- 
ton,  attending  chiu-ch,  passing  laws,  using  the 
telephone,  and  so  on.  That  is  the  history  of 
European  mankind.  And  in  the  face  of  it  the 
wiseacres  talk  sapiently,  and  lay  it  down  as  a 
self-evident    and    demonstrable    fact    that    the 


II 


2l6 


The  Great  Illusion 


abandonment  of  inter-state  war.  which,  by  reason 
of  the  mechanics  of  our  civilization,  accomplishes 
nothmg  and  can  accomplish  nothing,  will  for 
ever  be  rendered  impossible  because,  once  man 
has  got  the  habit  of  doing  a  thing,  he  will  go  on 
domg  It,  although  the  reason  which  in  the  first 
instance  prompted  it  has  long  since  disappeared— 
because,  in  short,  of  the  "unchangeabmty  of 
himian  nature.  ** 

I  have  not  in  the  foregoing  chapter  touched 
on  the  underlying  principle  which  explains  this 
change  m  man's  nature:  it  suffices  for  the  pres- 
ent to  draw  attention  to  the  facts.  The  second 
senes  of  facts— the  relative  advance  made  by  the 
military  and  the  less  miHtar>^  nations-remains  to 
be  presented,  which  is  done  in  the  next  chapter- 
and  then  the  general  law  which  underlies  and 
explains  both  series  of  facts  wiU  be  elucidated 


CHAPTER  IV 

DO   THE   WARLIKE   NATIONS   INHERIT   THE  EARTH? 

The  confident  dogmatism  of  militarist  writers  on  this  subject— 
The  facts— The  lessons  of  Spanish-America— How  conquest 
makes  for  the  survival  of  the  unfit— Spanish  method  and 
English  method  in  the  New  World— The  virtues  of  military 
training— The  Dreyfus  case— The  threatened  Germanization 
of  England. 

T^HE  militarist  authorities  I  have  quoted  in  the 
I  preceding  chapter  admit,  therefore,  and 
admit  very  largely,  man's  drift,  in  a  sentimental 
sense,  away  from  war.  But  that  drift,  they  de- 
clare, is  degeneration;  without  those  qualities 
which  'Var  alone,"  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  phrase, 
can  develop,  man  will  *'rot  and  decay." 

This  plea  is,  of  course,  directly  germane  to  our 
subject.  To  say  that  the  qualities  which  we 
associate  with  war,  and  nothing  else  but  war,  are 
necessary  to  assure  a  nation  success  in  its  struggles 
with  other  nations  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
those  who  drift  away  from  war  will  go  down 
before  those  whose  warlike  activity  can  conserve 
those  qualities  essential  to  survival ;  which  is  but 
another  way  of  saying  that  men  must  always 

217 


2l8 


The  Great  Illusion 


remain  warlike  if  they  are  to  survive;  that  the 
warlike  nations  inherit  the  earth;  that  men's  pug- 
nacity, therefore,  is  the  outcome  of  the  great 
natural  law  of  survival,  and  that  a  decline  of 
pugnacity  marks  in  any  nation  a  recession  and  not 
an  advance  in  its  struggle  for  survival.  I  have 
already  indicated  (Chapter  II,  Part  2)  the  outlines 
of  the  proposition,  which  leaves  no  escape  from 
this  conclusion.  This  is  the  scientific  basis  of 
the  proposition  voiced  by  the  authorities  I  have 
quoted— Mr.  Roosevelt,  Von  Moltke,  Renan, 
Nietzsche,  and  various  of  the  warlike  clergy' — 
and  it  lies  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  plea  that 
man's  nature,  in  so  far  as  it  touches  the  tendency 
of  men  as  a  whole  to  go  to  war,  does  not  change ; 
that  the  warlike  qualities  are  a  necessary  part  of 
human  vitality  in  the  struggle  for  existence;  that, 
in  short,  all  that  we  know  of  the  law  of  evolution 
forbids  the  conclusion  that  man  will  ever  lose  this 
warlike  pugnacity,  or  that  nations  will  survive 
other  than  by  the  struggle  of  physical  force. 

« See  citations,  p.  152,  notably  Mr.  Roosevelt's  dictum:  "In 
this  world  the  nation  that  is  trained  to  a  career  of  unwarlike  and 
isolated  ease  is  bound  to  go  down  in  the  end  before  other  nations 
which  have  not  lost  the  manly  and  adventurous  qualities."  This 
view  is  even  emphasized  in  th  speech  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
recently  delivered  at  the  University  of  Berlin  (see  Times,  May  13, 
1910).  "The  Roman  civilization,"  declared  Mr.  Roosevelt— 
perhaps,  as  the  Times  remarks,  to  the  surprise  of  those  who  have 
been  taught  to  believe  that  latifundia  perditere  Roma — '*  went 
down  primarily  because  the  Roman  citizen  would  not  fight, 
because  Rome  had  lost  the  fighting  edge."     See  footnote,  p.  156, 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      219 

The  view  is  best  voiced,  perhaps,  by  General 
Homer  Lea,  whom  I  have  already  quoted.  He  says : 


As  physical  vigour  represents  the  strength  of  man 
in  his  struggle  for  existence,  in  the  same  sense  military 
vigour  constitutes  the  strength  of  nations;  ideals, 
laws,  constitutions  are  but  temporary  effulgences 
(p.  11).  The  deterioration  of  the  military  force  and 
the  consequent  destruction  of  the  militant  spirit 
have  been  concurrent  with  national  decay  (p.  24). 
International  disagreements  are  .  .  .  the  result  of 
the  primordial  conditions  that  sooner  or  later  cause 
war,  .  .  .  the  law  of  struggle,  the  law  of  survival, 
universal,  unalterable  ...  to  thwart  them,  to  short- 
cut them,  to  circumvent  them,  to  cozen,  to  deny, 
to  scorn,  to  violate  them,  is  folly  such  as  man's  con- 
ceit alone  makes  possible.  .  .  .  Arbitration  denies 
the  inexorability  of  natural  laws  .  .  .  that  govern  the 
existence  of  political  entities  (pp.  76,  77).  Laws  that 
govern  the  militancy  of  a  people  are  not  of  man's 
framing,  but  follow  the  primitive  ordinances  of 
nature  that  govern  all  forms  of  life  from  a  simple 
protozoa,  awash  in  the  sea,  to  the  empires  of  man 
(The  Valour  of  Ignorance), 

I  have  already  indicated  the  grave  miscon- 
ception which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  evolutionary  law  here  indicated. 
What  we  are  concerned  with  now  is  to  deal  with 
the  facts  on  which  this  alleged  general  principle 
is  inductively  based.  We  have  seen  from  the  fore- 
going chapter  that  man's  natiu-e  certainly  does 


220 


The  Great  Illusion 


change;  we  axe  concerned  to  show  here  from  the 
facts  of  the  present-day  world  that  the  warlike 
qualities  do  not  make  for  survival,  that  the  warlike 
nations  do  not  inherit  the  earth. 

Which  are  the  military  nations?  We  generally 
think  of  them  in  Europe  as  Germany  and  France, 
or  perhaps  also  Russia,  Austria,  and  Italy.  Ad- 
mittedly {vide  all  the  EngHsh  and  American 
military  pundits  and  economists)  England  is  the 
least  militarized  nation  in  Europe,  the  United 
States  perhaps  in  the  worid.  It  is,  above  all, 
Germany  that  appeals  to  us  as  the  type  of  the 
military  nation,  one  in  which  the  stem  school  of 
war  makes  for  the  preservation  of  the  "manly  and 
adventurous  qualities. " 

The  facts  want  a  little  closer  examination.  What 
is  a  career  of  unwarlike  ease,  in  Mr.  R(X)sevelt's 
phrase?  In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  that  during 
the  last  forty  years,  eight  thousand  out  of  sixty 
million  Germans  have  been  engaged  in  warfare 
during  a  trifle  over  a  year,  and  that  against 
Hottentots  or  Hereros.  This  gives  a  proportion 
of  war  days  per  German  as  against  peace-days 
per  German  which  is  as  one  to  some  hundreds  of 
thousands.  So  that  if  we  are  to  take  Germany  as 
the  type  of  the  military  nation,  and  if  we  are  to 
accept  Mr.  Roosevelt's  dictum  that  by  war  alone 
can  we  acquire  "those  virile  qualities  necessary 
to  win  in  the  stem  strife  of  actual  life,  '*  we  shall 
nevertheless  be  doomed  to  lose  them,  for  under 


IIl 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      221 

conditions  like  those  of  Germany  how  many  of  us 
can  ever  see  war,  or  can  pretend  to  fall  under  its 
influence?  As  already  pointed  out,  the  men  who 
really  give  the  stamp  to  the  German  nation,  to 
German  life  and  conduct — ^that  is  to  say,  the  ma- 
jority of  adult  Germans — ^have  never  seen  a  battle 
and  never  will.  France  has  done  much  better. 
Not  only  has  she  seen  infinitely  more  of  actual 
fighting,  but  her  population  is  much  more  mili- 
tarized than  that  of  Germany,  50  per  cent,  more, 
in  fact,  since,  in  order  to  maintain  from  a  popula- 
tion of  forty  millions  the  same  military  effective 
as  Germany  does  with  sixty  millions,  i|  per  cent, 
of  the  French  population  is  under  arms  as  against 
I  per  cent,  of  the  German.' 

Still  more  military  in  both  senses  is  Russia,  as  we 
know,  and  more  military  than  Russia  is  Turkey, 
and  more  military  than  Turkey  as  a  whole  are  the 
semi-independent  sections  of  Turkey,  Arabia,  and 
Albania,  and  then,  perhaps,  comes  Morocco. 

On  the  Western  Hemisphere  we  can  draw  a  like 
table  as  to  the  "warlike,  adventurous,  manly  and 
progressive  peoples **  as  compared  with  the  "peace- 
ful, craven,  slothful,  and  decadent."  The  least 
warlike  of  all,  the  nation  which  has  had  the  least 
training  in  war,  the  least  experience  of  it,  which 

» See  M.  Messimy's  Report  on  the  War  Budget  for  1908  (an- 
nexe 3,  p.  474).  France's  military  activities  since  1870  have, 
of  course,  been  much  greater  than  those  of  Germany, — Tonkin, 
Madagascar,  Algiers,  Morocco.  As  against  these,  Germany  has 
only  had  the  Hereros  Campaign. 


222 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


! 


I 


has  been  the  least  purified  by  it,  is  Canada. 
After  that  comes  the  United  States,  and  after  that 
the  best  (excuse  me,  I  mean,  of  course,  the  worst) 
— L  e,,  the  least  warlike  of  the  Spanish  American 
Republics— like  Mexico  and  Argentina ;  while  the 
most  warlike  of  all,  and  consequently  the  most 
"manly  and  progressive,"  are  the  "Sambo"  re- 
publics, like  San  Domingo.  Nicaragua,  Colombia, 
and  Venezuela.  They  are  always  fighting.  If 
they  cannot  manage  to  get  up  a  fight  between  one 
another,  the  various  parties  in  each  republic  will 
fight  between  themselves.  Here  we  get  the  real 
thing.  The  soldiers  do  not  pass  their  lives  in 
practising  the  "goose-step,"  cleaning  harness, 
pipeclaying  belts,  but  in  giving  and  taking  hard 
pounding.  Several  of  these  progressive  republics 
have  never  known  a  year  since  they  declared  their 
independence  from  Spain  in  which  they  have  not 
had  a  war.  And  quite  a  considerable  proportion 
of  the  populations  spend  their  whole  lives  in 
fighting.  During  the  first  twenty  years  of  Vene- 
zuelans independent  existence  she  fought  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty  important  battles, 
either  with  her  neighbours  or  with  herself,  and 
she  has  maintained  the  average  pretty  well  ever 
since.  Every  election  is  a  fight — none  of  your 
"mouth  fighting,"  none  of  your  craven  talking- 
shops  for  them.  Good,  honest,  hard,  manly 
knocks,  with  anything  from  one  to  five  thousand 
dead  and  wounded  left  on  the  field.    The  presi- 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       223 

dents  of  these  strenuous  republics  are  not  pol- 
troons of  politicians,  but  soldiers — men  of  blood 
and  iron  with  a  vengeance — men  after  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  own  heart,  all  following  "the  good 
old  rule,  the  simple  plan."  These  are  the  people 
who  have  taken  Carlyle's  advice  to  "shut  up 
the  talking- shops."  They  fight  it  out  like  men; 
they  talk  with  Gatling-guns  and  Mausers.  Oh, 
they  are  a  very  fine,  manly,  military  lot!  If 
fighting  makes  for  survival,  they  should  com- 
pletely oust  from  the  field  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  one  of  which  has  never  had  a  real  battle 
for  the  best  part  of  its  hundred  years  of  craven, 
sordid,  peaceful  life,  and  the  other  of  which 
General  Homer  Lea  assures  us  is  surely  dying, 
because  of  its  tendency  to  avoid  fighting. 

General  Lea  makes  no  secret  of  the  fact  (and 
if  he  did,  some  of  his  rhetoric  would  display  it) 
that  he  is  out  of  sympathy  with  predominant 
American  ideals.  He  might  emigrate  to  Venez- 
uela, or  Colombia,  or  Nicaragua.  He  would 
be  able  to  prove  to  each  military  dictator  in  turn 
that,  in  converting  the  country  into  a  shambles, 
far  from  committing  a  foul  crime  for  which  such 
dictators  should  be,  and  are,  held  in  execration  by 
civilized  men  the  world  over,  they  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, but  obeying  one  of  God's  commands  in 
tune  with  all  the  immutable  laws  of  the  universe. 
I  desire  to  write  in  all  seriousness,  but  to  one  who 
happens  to  have  seen  at  first  hand  something  of 


224 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      225 


I 


ii 


the  conditions  which  arise  from  a  real  military 
conception  of  civilization  it  is  very  difficult. 
How  does  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  declares  that  *'by 
war  alone  can  we  acquire  those  virile  qualities 
necessary  to  win  in  the  stern  strife  of  actual  life'*; 
how  does  von  Stengel,  who  declares  that  "war  is  a 
test  of  a  nation's  health  poHtical,  physical,  and 
moral";  Mr.  Sidney  Low,  who  infers  that  the 
military  state  is  so  much  finer  than  the  Cobdenite 
one  of  commercial  pursuits;  M.  Ernest  Renan, 
who  declares  that  war  is  the  condition  of  progress, 
and  that  under  peace  we  should  sink  to  a  degree 
of  degeneracy  difficult  to  realize;  and  how  do 
the  various  English  clergymen  who  voice  a  like 
philosophy  reconcile  their  creed  with  military 
Spanish- America?  How  can  they  urge  that  non- 
military  industriaHsm,  which,  with  all  its  short- 
comings, has  on  the  Western  Continent  given  us 
Canada  and  the  United  States,  makes  for  decadence 
and  degeneration,  while  militarism  and  the  qualities 
and  instincts  that  go  with  it  have  given  us  Venez- 
uela and  San  Domingo?  Do  we  not  all  recognize 
that  industrialism— Mr.  Lea's  "gourmandizing 
and  retching"  notwithstanding— is  the  one  thing 
which  will  save  these  military  republics;  that  the 
one  condition  of  their  advance  is  that  they  shall 
give  up  the  stupid  and  sordid  gold-braid  militarism 
and  turn  to  honest  work? 

If  ever  there  was  a  justification  for  Herbert 
Spencer's  sweeping  generalization  that  "advance 


to  the  highest  forms  of  man  and  society  depends 
on  the  decline  of  militancy  and  the  growth  of 
industrialism, "  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  history  of 
the  South  and  Central  American  republics.  In- 
deed, Spanish-America  at  the  present  moment 
affords  more  lessons  than  we  seem  to  be  drawing, 
and,  if  militancy  makes  for  advance  and  survival, 
it  is  a  most  extraordinary  thing  that  all  who  are 
in  any  way  concerned  with  those  countries,  all 
who  live  in  them  and  whose  future  is  wrapped 
up  in  them,  can  never  sufficiently  express  their 
thankfulness  that  at  last  there  seems  to  be  a 
tendency  with  some  of  them  to  get  away  from  the 
blood  and  valour  nonsense  which  has  been  their 
curse  for  three  centuries,  and  to  exchange  the 
military  ideal  for  the  Cobdenite  one  of  bujdng 
cheap  and  selling  dear  which  so  excites  the  scorn 
of  Mr.  Sidney  Low. 

Some  years  ago  an  Italian  lawyer,  a  certain 
Tomasso  Caivano,  wrote  a  letter  detailing  his 
experiences  and  memories  of  twenty  years'  life  in 
Venezuela  and  the  neighbouring  republics,  and 
his  general  conclusions  have  for  this  discussion  a 
direct  relevancy.  As  a  sort  of  farewell  exhortation 
to  the  Venezuelans,  he  wrote: 

The  curse  of  your  civilization  is  the  soldier  and  the 
soldier's  temper.  It  is  impossible  for  two  of  you,  still 
less  for  two  parties,  to  carry  on  a  discussion  without 
one  wanting  to  fight  the  other  about  the  matter  in 
hand.     You  regard  it  as  a  derogation  of  dignity  to 


r* 


226 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      227 


I 


I 


t 


ip 


i\ 


consider  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  side,  and  to 
attempt  to  meet  it,  if  it  is  possible  to  fight  about  it. 
You  deem  that  personal  valour  atones  for  all  defects. 
The  soldier  of  evil  character  is  more  considered 
amongst  you  than  the  civilian  of  good  character, 
and  military  adventure  is  deemed  more  honourable 
than  honest  labour.  You  overlook  the  worst  cor- 
ruption, the  worst  repression,  in  your  leaders  if  only 
they  gild  it  with  military  fanfaronade  and  declamation 
about  bravery  and  destiny  and  patriotism.  Not 
until  there  is  a  change  in  this  spirit  will  you  cease  to  be 
the  victims  of  evil  oppression.  Not  until  your  general 
populace — your  peasantry  and  your  workers — refuse 
thus  to  be  led  to  slaughter  in  quarrels  of  which  they 
know  and  care  nothing,  but  into  which  they  are  led 
because  they  also  prefer  fighting  to  work — not  until 
all  this  happens  will  those  beautiful  lands  which  are 
among  the  most  fertile  on  God's  earth  support  a 
happy  and  prosperous  people  living  in  contentment 
and  secure  possession  of  the  fruits  of  their  labour.* 

Spanish- America  seems  at  last  in  a  fair  way  of 
throwing  oflf  the  domination  of  the  soldier  and 
awakening  from  these  nightmares  of  successive 
military  despotisms  tempered  by  assassination, 
though,  in  abandoning,  in  Signor  Caivano's  words, 
** military  adventure  for  honest  labour,"  she  will 
necessarily  have  less  to  do  with  those  deeds  of 
blood  and  valour  of  which  her  history  has  been 
so  full.  But  those  in  South  America  who  matter 
are  not  mourning.     Really  they  are  not.' 

^Voxdela  Nagian,  Caracas,  April  22, 1897 

'  Even  Mr.  Roosevelt  calls  South  American  history  mean  and 


The  thing  can  be  duplicated  absolutely  on  this 
side  of  the  hemisphere.  Change  a  few  names,  and 
you  get  Arabia  or  Morocco.  Listen  to  this  from 
a  recent  Times  article': 

The  fact  is  that  for  many  years  past  Turkey  has 
almost  invariably  been  at  war  in  some  part  or  other 
of  Arabia.  ...  At  the  present  moment  Turkey  is 
actually  conducting  three  separate  small  campaigns 
within  Arabia  or  upon  its  borders,  and  a  fourth  series 
of  minor  operations  in  Mesopotamia.  The  last- 
named  movement  is  against  the  Kurdish  tribes  of 
the  Mosul  district.  .  .  .  Another,  and  more  im- 
portant advance  is  against  the  truculent  Mimtefik 
Arabs  of  the  Euphrates  delta.  .  .  .  The  fourth,  and 
by  far  the  largest,  campaign  is  the  unending  warfare 
in  the  province  of  Yemen,  north  of  Aden,  where  the 
Turks  have  been  fighting  intermittently  for  more  than 
a  decade.  The  peoples  of  Arabia  are  also  indulging 
in  conflict  on  their  own  account.  The  interminable 
feud  between  the  rival  potentates  of  Nedjd,  Ibn  Saud 

bloody.  It  is  noteworthy  that,  in  his  article  published  in  the 
Bachelor  of  Arts  for  March,  1896,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  lectured 
Englishmen  so  vigorously  on  their  duty  at  all  cost,  not  to  be  guided 
by  sentimentalism  in  the  government  of  Egypt,  should  write  thus 
at  the  time  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  Venezuelan  message  to  England: 
"Mean  and  bloody  though  the  history  of  the  South  American 
republics  has  been,  it  is  distinctly  in  the  interest  of  civilization 
that  .  .  .  they  should  be  left  to  develop  along  their  own  lines. 
.  .  .  Under  the  best  of  circumstances,  a  colony  is  in  a  false  po- 
sition; but  if  a  colony  is  a  region  where  the  colonizing  race  has  to 
do  its  work  by  means  of  other  and  inferior  races,  the  condition  is 
much  worse.  There  is  no  chance  for  any  tropical  colony  owned 
by  a  Northern  race." 
'  June  2,  1910. 


228 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       229 


1 


of  Riadh  and  Ibn  Rashid  of  Hail,  has  broken  out 
afresh,  and  the  tribes  of  the  coastal  province  of  El 
Katar  are  supposed  to  have  plunged  into  the  fray. 
The  Muntefik  Arabs,  not  content  with  worrying  the 
Turks,  are  harrying  the  territories  of  Sheikh  Mur- 
barak  of  Koweit.  In  the  far  south  the  S\iltan  of 
Shehr  and  Mokalla,  a  feudatory  of  the  British 
Government,  is  conducting  a  tiny  war  against  a  hostile 
tribe  in  the  mysterious  Hadramaut.  In  the  west  the 
Beduin  are  spasmodically  menacing  certain  sections 
of  the  Hedjaz  Railway,  which  they  very  much  dislike. 
.  .  .  Ten  years  ago  the  Ibn  Rashids  were  nominally 
masters  of  a  great  deal  of  Arabia,  and  grew  so  aggres- 
sive that  they  tried  to  seize  Koweit.  The  fiery  old 
Sheikh  of  Koweit  marched  against  them,  and  alter- 
nately won  and  lost.  He  had  his  revenge.  He  sent 
an  audacious  scion  of  the  Ibn  Sauds  to  the  old 
Wahabi  capital  of  Riadh,  and  by  a  remarkable 
stratagem  the  youth  captured  the  stronghold  with 
only  fifty  men  at  his  back.  When  the  new  Ibn  Saud 
raised  afresh  the  white  and  red  banner  of  the  Wahabis, 
thousands  flocked  to  his  aid.  The  rival  parties  have 
been  fighting  at  intervals  ever  since. 

And  so  on  and  so  on  to  the  extent  of  a  column.  So 
that  what  Venezuela  and  Nicaragua  are  to  the 
American  Continent,  Arabia,  Albania,  Armenia, 
Montenegro  and  Morocco  are  to  the  Eastern  Hemi- 
sphere. We  find  exactly  the  same  rule — that 
just  as  one  gets  away  from  militancy  one  gets 
towards  advance  and  civilization;  as  men  lose 
the  tendency  to  fight  they  gain  the  tendency  to 


work,  and  it  is  by  working  with  one  another, 
and  not  by  fighting  against  each  other,  that  men 
advance. 

Take  the  progression  away  from  militancy,  and 
it  gives  us  a  table  something  like  this: 

Arabia  and  Morocco. 

Turkish  territory  as  a  whole. 

The  more  unruly  Balkan  States.    Montenegro. 

Russia. 

France. 

Germany. 

Scandinavia.    Holland.    Belgium. 

England. 

Do  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Admiral  Mahan,  Baron 
von  Stengel,  Marshal  von  Moltke,  General  Lea, 
and  the  English  clergymen  seriously  argue  that 
this  list  should  be  reversed,  and  that  Arabia  and 
Turkey  should  be  taken  as  the  types  of  progressive 
nations,  and  England  and  Germany  and  Scan- 
dinavia as  the  decadent? 

It  may  be  urged  that  my  list  is  not  absolutely 
accurate,  in  that  England,  having  fought  more 
little  wars  (though  the  conflict  with  the  Boers, 
waged  with  a  small,  pastoral  people,  shows  how 
little  wars  may  drain  a  great  country),  is  more 
militarized  than  Germany,  which  has  not  been 
fighting  at  all.  But  I  have  tried  in  a  very  rough 
fashion  to  arrive  at  the  degree  of  militancy  in  each 
State,  and  the  absence  of  actual  fighting  in  the  case 
of  Germany  (as  in  that  of  the  smaller  States)  is 


230 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      231 


II 


I  III 


balanced  by  the  fact  of  the  military  training  of 
her  people.  As  I  have  already  indicated,  France 
is  more  military  than  Germany,  both  in  the  ex- 
tent to  which  her  people  are  put  through  the  mill 
of  universal  military  training  and  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  she  has  done  so  much  more  small  fighting 
than  Germany  (Madagascar,  Tonkin,  Africa,  etc.) ; 
while,  of  course,  Russia  and  the  Balkan  States  are 
still  more  military  in  both  senses — more  actual 
fighting,  more  military  training. 

Perhaps  the  militarist  will  argue  that,  while 
useless  and  unjust  wars  make  for  degeneration, 
just  wars  are  a  moral  regeneration.  But  did  a 
nation,  group,  tribe,  family  or  individual  ever 
yet  enter  into  a  war  which  he  did  not  think  just? 
The  British,  or  most  of  them,  believed  the  war 
against  the  Boers  just,  but  most  of  the  authorities 
in  favour  of  war  in  general  outside  of  Great  Britain 
believed  it  unjust.  Nowhere  do  you  find  such 
deathless,  absolute,  unwavering  belief  in  the 
justice  of  war  as  in  those  conflicts  which  all 
Christendom  knows  to  be  at  once  imjust  and 
unnecessary.  I  refer  to  the  religious  wars  of 
Mohammedan  fanaticism. 

Do  you  suppose  that  when  Nicaragua  goes  to 
war  with  San  Salvador  or  Costa  Rica,  or  Colombia 
with  Peru,  or  Peru  with  Chili,  or  Chili  with  the 
Argentine,  they  do  not  each  and  every  one  of  them 
believe  that  they  are  fighting  for  immutable 
and  deathless  principles?    The  civilization  of  most 


of  them  is,  of  course,  as  like  as  two  peas,  and  there 
is  no  more  reason,  except  their  dislike  of  rational 
thought  and  hard  work,  why  they  should  fight 
with  one  another,  despite  General  Lea's  fine  words 
as  to  the  primordial  character  of  national  differ- 
ences, than  that  Dorset  should  fight  with  Devon; 
to  one  another  they  are  as  alike,  and  whether  San 
Salvador  beats  Costa  Rica  or  Costa  Rica  San 
Salvador  does  not,  so  far  as  essentials  are  con- 
cerned, matter  twopence.  But  their  rhetoric  of 
patriotism — ^the  sacrifice,  and  the  deathless  glory, 
and  the  rest  of  it — is  often  just  as  sincere  as 
ours.  That  is  the  tragedy  of  it,  and  it  is  that 
which  gives  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  in 
Spanish -America  its  real  difficulty. 

But  even  if  we  admit  that  warfare  d  Vespagnole 
may  be  degrading,  and  that  just  wars  are  ennobling 
and  necessary  to  our  moral  welfare,  we  should 
nevertheless  be  condemned  to  degeneracy  and 
decline.  A  just  war  implies  that  someone  must 
act  unjustly  towards  us,  but  as  the  general  condi- 
tion improves — as  it  is  improving  in  Europe  as 
compared  with  Central  and  South  America,  or 
Morocco,  or  Arabia — we  shall  get  less  and  less 
"moral  purification** ;  as  men  become  less  and  less 
disposed  to  make  imjustifiable  attacks,  they  will 
become  more  and  more  degenerate.  In  such 
incoherence  are  we  landed  by  the  pessimistic  and 
impossible  philosophy  that  men  will  decay  and  die 
unless  they  go  on  killing  each  other. 


232 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      233 


I 


I 


What  is  the  fundamental  error  at  the  base  of  the 
theory  that  war  makes  for  the  survival  of  the  fit — 
that  warfare  is  any  necessary  expression  of  the  law 
of  survival?  It  is  the  illusion  induced  by  the 
hypnotism  of  a  terminology  which  is  obsolete. 
The  same  factor  which  leads  us  so  astray  in  the 
economic  domain  leads  us  also  astray  in  this. 

Conquest  does  not  make  for  the  elimination 
of  the  conquered;  the  weakest  do  not  go  to  the 
wall,  though  that  is  the  process  which  those  who 
adopt  the  formula  of  evolution  in  this  matter  have 
in  their  minds. 

Great  Britain  has  conquered  India.  Does 
that  mean  that  the  inferior  race  is  replaced  by  the 
superior?  Not  the  least  in  the  world;  the  inferior 
race  not  only  survives,  but  is  given  an  extra  lease 
of  life  by  virtue  of  the  conquest.  If  ever  the 
Asiatic  threatens  the  white  race,  it  will  be  thanks 
in  no  small  part  to  the  work  of  race  conservation 
which  England's  conquests  in  the  East  have 
involved.  War,  therefore,  does  not  make  for  the 
elimination  of  the  unfit  and  the  survival  of  the  fit. 
It  would  be  truer  to  say  that  it  makes  for  the 
survival  of  the  unfit. 

What  is  the  real  process  of  war?  You  carefully 
select  from  the  general  population  on  both  sides 
the  healthiest,  sturdiest,  the  physically  and 
mentally  soundest,  those  possessing  precisely  the 
virile  and  manly  qualities  which  you  desire  to 
preserve,  and,  having  thus  selected  the  Hik  of 


the  two  populations,  you  exterminate  them  by 
battle  and  disease,  and  leave  the  worst  of  both 
sides  to  amalgamate  in  the  process  of  conquest  or 
defeat — ^because,  in  so  far  as  the  final  amal- 
gamation is  concerned,  both  processes  have  the 
same  result — and  from  this  amalgam  of  the  worst 
of  both  sides  you  create  the  new  nation  or  the 
new  society  which  is  to  carry  on  the  race.  Even 
supposing  the  better  nation  wins,  the  fact  of 
conquest  results  only  in  the  absorption  of  the 
inferior  qualities  of  the  beaten  nation— inferior 
presumably  because  beaten,  and  inferior  because 
we  have  killed  off  their  selected  best  and  absorbed 
the  rest,  since  we  no  longer  exterminate  the 
women,  the  children,  the  old  men,  and  those  too 
weak  or  too  feeble  to  go  into  the  army.  ^ 

You  have  only  to  carry  on  this  process  long 
enough  and  persistently  enough  to  weed  out 
completely  from  both  sides  the  type  of  man  to 

»  Dr.  otto  Seeck  {Der  Untergang  der  Antiken  Welt)  finds  the 
downfall  of  Rome  due  solely  to  the  rooting  out  of  the  best — die 
Ausrottung  der  Besten.  Seeley  says:  "The  Roman  Empire 
perished  for  want  of  men." 

Three  million  men— the  6\ite  of  Europe— perished  in  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  It  is  said  that  after  those  wars  the  height 
standard  of  the  French  adult  population  fell  abruptly  one  inch. 
However  that  may  be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  physical  fitness 
of  the  French  people  was  immensely  lowered  by  the  drain  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  since,  as  the  result  of  a  century  of  militarism, 
France  is  compelled  every  few  years  to  reduce  the  standard  of 
physical  fitness  in  order  to  keep  up  her  effective  military  strength, 
so  that  now  even  three-foot  dwarfs  are  impressed.  There  is  no 
height  limit  at  all. 


34 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       235 


I 


whom  alone  we  can  look  for  the  conservation  of 
virility,  physical  vigour,  and  hardihood.  That 
such  a  process  did  play  no  small  r61e  in  the  degener- 
ation  of  Rome  and  the  populations  on  which  the 
crux  of  the  Empire  reposed  there  can  hardly 
be  any  reasonable  doubt.  And  the  process  of 
degeneration  on  the  part  of  the  conqueror  is 
aided  by  this  added  factor:  If  the  conqueror 
profits  much  by  his  conquest,  as  the  Romans 
did  in  one  sense,  it  is  the  conqueror  who  is  threat- 
ened by  the  enervating  effect  of  the  soft  and 
luxurious  Hfe;  while  it  is  the  conquered  who  are 
forced  to  labour  for  the  conqueror,  and  who  learn 
in  consequence  those  quaHties  of  steady  industry 
which  are  certainly  a  better  moral  training  than 
living  upon  the  fruits  of  others,  upon  labour  ex- 
torted at  the  sword's  point.  It  is  the  conqueror 
who  becomes  effete,  and  it  is  the  conquered  who 
learn  discipline  and  the  qualities  making  for  a 
well-ordered  state. 

To  say  of  war,  therefore,  as  does  Baron  von 
Stengel,  that  it  destroys  the  frail  trees,  leaving  the 
sturdy  oaks  standing,  is  merely  to  state  with 
absolute  confidence  the  exact  reverse  of  the  truth : 
to  take  advantage  of  loose  catch-phrases,  which 
by  inattention  not  only  distort  common  thought 
in  these  matters,  but  often  turn  the  truth  upside 
down.  Our  everyday  ideas  are  full  of  illustrations 
of  the  same  thing.  For  hundreds  of  years  we 
talked  of  the  "riper  wisdom  of  the  ancients," 


implying  that  this  generation  is  the  youth  in  ex- 
perience, and  that  the  early  ages  had  the  accu- 
mulated experience — the  exact  reverse,  of  course, 
of  the  truth.  Yet  "the  learning  of  the  ancients" 
and  "the  wisdom  of  our  forefathers"  was  a  com- 
mon catch-phrase,  even  in  the  British  Parliament, 
until  an  English  country  parson  killed  this  non- 
sense by  ridicule.^ 

I   do   not   urge   that    the   somewhat   simple, 
elementary,  selective  process  which  I  have  de- 
scribed accounts  in  itself  for  the  decadence  of 
military  Powers.     That  is  only  a  part  of  the  pro- 
cess :  the  whole  of  it  is  somewhat  more  complicated, 
in  that  the  process  of  elimination  of  the  good 
in  favour  of  the  bad  is  quite  as  much  sociological 
as  biological;  that  is  to  say,  if  during  long  periods 
a  nation  gives  itself  up  to  war,  trade  languishes, 
the  population  loses  the  habit  of  steady  industry, 
government  and  administration  become  corrupt, 
abuses  escape  punishment,  and  the  real  sources 
of   a  people's  strength   and  expansion  dwindle. 
What  has  caused  the  relative  failure  and  decline 
of  Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  French  expansion  in 
Asia  and  the  New  World,  and  the  relative  success 
of  English  expansion  therein?    Was  it  the  mere 
hazards  of  war  which  gave  to  Great  Britain  the 
domination  of  India  and  half  of  the  New  World? 
That  is  surely  a  superficial  reading  of  history.     It 

» I  think  one  may  say  fairly  that  it  was  Sidney  Smith's  ridicule 
which  killed  this  curious  illusion. 


236 


The  Great  Illusion 


III 


was,  rather,  that  the  methods  and  processes  of 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  France  were  military,  while 
those  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  were  commercial 
and  peaceful.  Is  it  not  a  commonplace  that  in 
India,  quite  as  much  as  in  the  New  World,  the 
trader  and  the  settler  drove  out  the  soldier  and 
the  conqueror?  The  difference  between  the  two 
methods  was  that  one  was  a  process  of  conquest, 
and  the  other  of  colonizing,  or  non-military 
administration  for  commercial  purposes.  The 
one  embodied  the  sordid  Cobdenite  idea,  which 
so  excites  the  scorn  of  the  militarists,  and  the 
other  the  lofty  military  ideal.  The  one  was  para- 
sitism; the  other  co-operation.' 

Those  who  confound  the  power  of  a  nation  with 
the  size  of  its  army  and  navy  are  mistaking  the 
cheque-book  for  the  money.  A  child,  seeing  its 
father  paying  bills  in  cheques,  assumes  that  you 
only  need  plenty  of  cheque-books  in  order  to  have 
plenty  of  money;  it  does  not  see  that  for  the 
cheque-book  to  have  power  there  must  be  unseen 
resources  on  which  to  draw.  Of  what  use  is 
domination  unless  there  be  individual  capacity, 
social  training,  industrial  resources,  to  profit 
thereby?  How  can  you  have  these  things  if 
energy  is  wasted  as  in  military  adventure?  Is 
not  the  failure  of  Spain  explicable  by  the  fact 
that  she  failed  to  realize  this  truth?    For  three 

»  See  the  distinction  established  at  the  beginning  of  the  next 
chapter. 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      237 

centuries  she  attempted  to  live  upon  conquest, 
upon  the  force  of  her  arms,  and  year  after  year 
got  poorer  in  the  process,  and  her  modem  social 
renaissance  dates  from  the  time  when  she  lost  the 
last  of  her  American  colonies.     It  is  since  the  loss 
of  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  that  Spanish  na- 
tional  securities   have   doubled   in   value.     (At 
the    outbreak    of    the    Hispano-American    War 
Spanish  Foiirs  were  at  45 ;  they  have  since  touched 
par.)     And  if  Spain  has  shown  in  the  last  decade  a 
social  renaissance  not  shown  perhaps  for  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  it  is  because  a  nation  still  less 
mil-tary  than  Germany,  and   still  more  purely 
industrial,  has  compelled  Spain  once  and  for  all  to 
surrender  all  dream  of  empire  and  conquest.     The 
circumstances  of  the  last  surrender  are  eloquent 
in  this  connection  as  showing  how  even  in  warfare 
itself  the  industrial  training  and  the  industrial 
tradition— the  Cobdenite  ideal  of   Mr.   Sydney 
Low's  scorn — are  more  than  a  match  for  the  train- 
ing of  a  society  in  which  military  activities  are 
predominant.     If  it  be  true  that  it  was  the  German 
schoolmaster  who  conquered  at  Sedan,  it  was  the 
Chicago   merchant   who   conquered   at    Manila. 
The  writer  happens  to  have  been  in  touch  both 
with  Spaniards  and  Americans  at  the  time  of  the 
war,  and  well  remembers  the  scorn  with  which 
Spaniards  referred  to  the  notion  that  the  Yankee 
pork-butchers  could  possibly  conquer  a  nation  of 
their  military  tradition,  and  to  the  idea  that  trades- 


:i 


238 


The  Great  Illusion 


■1 


1 


men  would  ever  be  a  match  for  the  soldiery  and 
pride  of  old  Spain.  And  French  opinion  was  not 
so  very  different.'  Shortly  after  the  war  I  wrote 
in  an  American  journal  as  follows : 

Spain  represents  the  outcome  of  some  centuries 
devoted  mainly  to  military  activity.  No  one  can  say 
that  she  has  been  unmilitary  or  at  all  deficient  in 
those  qualities  which  we  associate  with  soldiers  and 
soldiering.  Yet,  if  such  qualities  in  any  way  make 
for  national  efficiency,  for  the  conservation  of  national 
force,  the  history  of  Spain  is  absolutely  inexplicable. 
In  their  late  contest  with  America,  Spaniards  showed 
no  lack  of  the  distinctive  military  virtues.  Spain's 
inferiority — apart  from  deficiency  of  men  and  money 
— was  precisely  in  those  qualities  which  industrialism 
has  bred  in  the  unmilitary  American.  Authentic 
stories  of  wretched  equipment,  inadequate  supplies, 
and  bad  leadership  show  to  what  depths  of  inefficiency 
the  Spanish  service,  miHtary  and  naval,  had  fallen. 
We  are  justified  in  beUeving  that  a  much  smaller 
nation  than  Spain,  but  one  possessing  a  more  in- 
dustrial and  less  miUtary  training,  would  have  done 
much  better,  both  as  regards  resistance  to  America 
and  the  defence  of  her  own  Colonies.  The  present 
position  of  Holland  in  Asia  seems  to  prove  this. 

» M.  Pierre  Loti,  who  happened  to  be  at  Madrid  when  the 
troops  were  leaving  to  fight  the  Americans,  wrote:  "They  are, 
indeed,  still  the  solid  and  splendid  Spanish  troops,  heroic  in  every 
epoch  ;on«  only  needs  to  look  at  them  to  divine  the  woe  that  awaits 
the  American  shopkeepers  when  brought  face  to  face  with  such 
soldiers."  He  prophesied  des  surprises  sanglantes,  M.  Loti  is  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy. 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       239 

The  Dutch,  whose  traditions  are  industrial  and  non- 
military  for  the  most  part,  have  shown  greater  power 
and  efficiency  as  a  nation  than  the  Spanish,  who  are 
more  numerous. 

Here,  as  always,  it  is  shown  that,  in  considering 
national  efficiency,   even   as  expressed  in  military 
power,  the  economic  problem  cannot  be  divorced 
from  the  miUtary,  and  that  it  is  a  fatal  mistake  to 
suppose  that  the  power  of  a  nation  depends  solely 
upon  the  power  of  its  public  bodies,  or  that  it  can  be 
judged  simply  from  the  size  of  its  army.     A  large 
army  may,  indeed,  be  a  sign  of  national — that  is, 
military — weakness.     Warfare   in    these    days   is    a 
business  like  most  else,  and  no  courage,  no  heroism, 
no  "glorious  past,"  no  "immortal  traditions,"  will 
atone  for  deficient  rations  and  fraudulent  administra- 
tion.    Good  civilian  qualities  are  the  ones  that  will  in 
the  end  win  a  nation's  battles.     The  Spaniard  is  the 
last  one  in  the  world  to  see  this.    He  talks  and  dreams 
of  Castilian  bravery  and  Spanish  honour,  and  is  above 
shopkeeping  details.    ...  A  writer  on  contemporary 
Spain    remarks    that    any    intelligent    middle-class 
Spaniard  will  admit  every  charge  of  incompetence 
which  can  be  brought  against  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs.     "Yes,   we  have  a  wretched   Government. 
In  any  other  country  somebody  wotild  be  shot . ' '    This 
is  the  hopeless  military  creed:  killing  somebody  is 
the  only  remedy. 

Here  we  see  a  trace  of  that  intellectual  legacy 
which  Spain  has  left  to  the  New  World,  and  which 
has  stamped  itself  so  indelibly  on  the  history  of 


240 


The  Great  Illusion 


N 


11 


Spanish-America.      On  a  later  occasion  in  this 
connection  I  wrote  as  follows : 

To  appreciate  the  outcome  of  much  soldiering,  the 
condition  in  which  persistent  military  training  may 
leave  a  race,  one  should  study  Spanish-America. 
Here  we  have  a  collection  of  some  score  of  States,  all 
very  much  alike  in  social  and  political  make-up. 
Most  of  the  South-American  States  so  resemble  one 
another  in  language,  laws,  institutions,  that  to  an 
outsider  it  would  seem  not  to  matter  a  straw  under 
which  particular  six-months-old  republic  one  should 
live;  whether  one  be  under  the  government  of  the  pro- 
nunciamento-created  President  of  Colombia,  or  the 
pronundamento-created  President  of  Venezuela,  one's 
condition  would  appear  to  be  much  the  same.  Ap- 
parently no  particular  country  has  anything  which 
differentiates  it  from  another,  and,  consequently, 
nothing  to  protect  against  the  other.  Absolutely  the 
Governments  might  all  change  places  and  the  people 
be  none  the  wiser.  Yet,  so  hypnotized  are  these 
little  States  by  the  "  necessity  for  self- protection," 
by  the  glamour  of  armaments,  that  there  is  not  one 
which  has  not  a  relatively  elaborate  and  expensive 
military  estabUshment  to  protect  it  from  the  rest. 

No  conditions  seem  so  propitious  for  a  practical 
confederation  than  those  of  Spanish- America;  with  a 
few  exceptions,  the  virtual  unity  of  language,  laws, 
general  race-ideals  would  seem  to  render  protection 
of  frontiers  supererogatory.  Yet  the  citizens  give 
imtold  wealth,  service,  life,  and  suffering  to  be  pro- 
tected against  a  Government  exactly  like  their  own. 
All  this  waste  of  life  and  energy  has  gone  on  without 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       241 

it  ever  occurring  to  one  of  these  States  that  it  were 
preferable  to  be  annexed  a  thousand  times  over,  so 
trifling  would  be  the  resulting  change  in  their  condi- 
tion, than  continue  the  everlasting  and  futile  tribute 
of  blood  and  treasure.  Over  some  absolutely  unim- 
portant matter — like  that  of  the  Patagonian  roads, 
which  nearly  brought  Argentina  and  Chili  to  grips  the 
other  day — as  much  patriotic  devotion  will  be  ex- 
pended as  ever  the  Old  Guard  lavished  in  protecting 
the  honour  of  the  Tricolour.  Battles  will  be  fought 
which  will  make  all  the  struggles  in  South  Africa 
appear  mean  in  comparison.  Actions  in  which  the 
dead  are  counted  in  thousands  will  excite  no  more 
comment  in  the  world  than  that  produced  by  a  skir- 
mish in  Natal,  in  which  a  score  of  yeomen  are  cap- 
tured and  released. 

In  the  decade  since  the  foregoing  was  written 
things  have  enormously  improved  in  South 
America.  Why?  For  the  simple  reason,  as 
pointed  out  in  Chapter  V.  of  the  first  part  of  this 
book,  that  Spanish-America  is  being  brought 
more  and  more  into  the  economic  movement  of 
the  world;  and  with  the  establishment  of  factories, 
in  which  large  capital  has  been  sunk,  banks, 
businesses,  etc.,  the  whole  attitude  of  mind  of 
those  interested  in  these  ventures  is  changed. 
The  Jingo,  the  military  adventurer,  the  fomenter 
of  trouble,  are  seen  for  what  they  are — not  as 
patriots,  but  as  representing  exceedingly  mis- 
chievous and  maleficient  forces. 


1 


1^ 

4 


I 


4 


i 


242 


The  Great  Illusion 


This  general  truth  has  two  facets :  if  long  warfare 
diverts  a  people  from  the  capacity  for  industry,  so 
in  the  long  run  economic  pressure — the  influences, 
that  is,  which  turn  the  energies  of  people  to  pre- 
occupation with  social  well-being — is  fatal  to  the 
military  tradition.  Neither  tendency  is  constant: 
warfare  produces  poverty;  poverty  pushes  to 
thrift  and  work,  which  result  in  wealth;  wealth 
creates  leisiu*e  and  pride  and  pushes  to  warfare. 

Where   Nature   does   not   respond  readily   to 
industrial  effort,  where  it  is  at  least  apparently 
more  profitable  to  plunder  than  to  work,  the  mili- 
tary tradition  survives.    The  Bedouin  has  been  a 
bandit  since  the  time  of  Abraham,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  desert  does  not  support  industrial 
life  nor  respond  to  industrial  effort.    The  only 
career  offering  a  fair  apparent  return  for  effort 
is  plunder.     In  Morocco,  in  Arabia,  in  all  very 
poor  pastoral  countries,  the  same  phenomenon  is 
exhibited;  in  mountainous  countries  which  are 
arid  and  are  removed  from  the  economic  centres, 
idem.     It  may  have  been  to  some  extent  the  case 
in  Prussia  before  the  era  of  coal  and  iron;  but 
the  fact  that  to-day  99  per  cent,  of  the  population 
is  normally  engaged  in  trade  and  industry,  and 
I  per  cent,  only  in  military  preparation,  and  some 
fraction  too  small  to  be  properly  estimated  engaged 
in  actual  war,  shows  how  far  she  has  outgrown 
such    a    state — shows,    incidentally,    what    little 
chance  the  ideal  and  tradition  represented  by  I 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       243 

per  cent,  or  some  fractional  percentage  has  against 
interests  and  activities  represented  by  99  per  cent. 
The  recent  history  of  South  and  Central  America, 
because  it  is  recent,  and  because  the  factors  are 
less  complicated,  illustrates  best  the  tendency  with 
which  we  are  dealing.     Spanish- America  inherited 
the  military  tradition  in  all  its  vigour.     As  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  the  Spanish  occupation  of  the 
American  Continent  was  a  process  of  conquest 
rather  than  of  colonizing;  and  while  the  Mother- 
country  got  poorer  and  poorer  by  the  process  of 
conquest,   the  new  countries  also  impoverished 
themselves  in  adherence  to  the  same  fatal  illusion. 
The  glamour  of  conquest  was,  of  course,  Spain's 
ruin.     So  long  as  it  was  possible  for  her  to  live 
on  extorted  bullion,  neither  social  nor  industrial 
development  seemed  possible.     Despite  the  com- 
mon idea  to  the  contrary,  Germany  has  known 
how  to  keep  this  fatal  hypnotism  at  bay,  and,  far 
from  allowing  her  military  activities  to  absorb  her 
industrial,  it  is  precisely  the  military  activities 
which  are  in  a  fair  way  now  of  being  absorbed  by 
the  industrial  and  commercial,   and  her  world 
commerce  has  its  foundation,  not  in  tribute  or 
bullion  exacted  at  the  sword's  point,  but  in  sound 
and  honest  exchange.     So  that  to-day  the  legiti- 
mate commercial  tribute  which  Germany,  who 
never  sent  a  soldier  there,  exacts  from  Spanish- 
America,  is  immensely  greater  than  that  which 
goes  to  Spain,  who  poured  out  blood  and  treasure 


11 


244 


The  Great  Illusion 


i 


'III'  I 


during  three  centuries  on  these  territories.  In  this 
way,  again,  do  the  wariike  nations  inherit  the 
earth! 

If  Germany  is  never  to  duplicate  Spain's  deca- 
dence, it  is  precisely  because  (i)  she  has  never 
had  historically  Spain's  temptation  to  live  by 
conquest,  and  (2)  because,  having  to  live  by  hon- 
est industry,  her  commercial  hold,  even  upon  the 
territories  conquered  by  Spain,  is  more  firmly  set 
than  that  of  Spain  herself. 

How  may  we  sum  up  the  whole  case,  keeping 
in  mind  every  empire  that  ever  existed — ^the  As- 
syrian, the  Babylonian,  the  Mede  and  Persian, 
the  Macedonian,  the  Roman,  the  Frank,  the 
Saxon,  the  Spanish,  the  Portuguese,  the  Bourbon, 
the  Napoleonic?  In  all  and  every  one  of  them 
we  may  see  the  same  process,  which  is  this: 
If  it  remains  military  it  decays ;  if  it  prospers  and 
takes  its  share  of  the  work  of  the  world  it  ceases 
to  be  military.  There  is  no  other  reading  of 
history. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  argued  that  the  whole 
thing  is  a  question  of  degree;  that  while  it  may 
be  quite  true  that  Spain  and  Portugal  have  worn 
themselves  out  with  military  conquest — mistaking 
the  means  for  the  end — ^that,  while  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  has  tritmiphed  by  the  non-military 
labour  of  her  settlers,  traders,  and  manufacturers, 
yet  the  fact  remains  that  had  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world  not  done  some  fighting  she  would  have 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      24s 

been  driven  from  the  New  World  or  would  never 
have  gained  a  foothold  there. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  deny  the  truth  of  this. 
The  principle  by  which  we  may  determine  the 
difference    between    advantageous    and    disad- 
vantageous   employment    of    military    force — a 
principle  which  most  clearly  establishes  the  differ- 
ence which  has  distinguished  the  expansion  of 
Spain  and  England — ^is  explained  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  chapter.    What  we  are  now  more 
concerned  with  is  not  so  much  processes  and  prin- 
ciples as  the  physical  and  psychological  facts  of 
the  case.    As  explained  in  the  first  section  of  this 
book,  I  am  arguing  the  main  thesis  on  the  facts 
of  the  world  as  they  stand  to-day;  and  just  what 
proportion  of  fighting  may  have  been  useful  in 
the  past  and  what  proportion  useless  is  an  interest- 
ing but  academic  question  I  am  not  concerned 
to  solve.     If  I  have  appealed  to  the  historical 
facts,  it  is  because  we  are  at  present  dealing  with 
the  human  nature  of  the  case — the  biological 
origins  of  the   sentimental  and  moral  motives 
pushing  nations  into  war — and  because  I  wish  to 
show  from  a  brief  historical  review  of  national 
development  that  the  broad  features  of  such  do 
not  justify  the  plea  that  pugnacity  and  antagonism 
between  nations  is  bound  up  in  any  way  with  the 
real  process  of  national  survival.     Those  facts 
show  clearly  enough  that  nations  nurtured  nor- 
mally in  peace  are  more  than  a  match  for  nations 


246 


The  Great  Illusion 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      247 


"■I 


u 


i 


f 


nurtured  normally  in  war;  that  communities  of 
non-military  tradition  and  instincts,  like  the 
Anglo-Saxon  communities  of  the  New  World,  show 
elements  of  survival  stronger  than  those  pos- 
sessed by  communities  animated  by  the  military 
tradition,  like  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  nations 
of  the  New  World ;  that  the  position  of  the  indus- 
trial nations  in  Europe  as  compared  with  the 
military  give  no  justification  for  the  plea  that  the 
warlike  qualities  make  for  survival.  It  is  clearly 
evident  that  there  is  no  biological  justification 
in  the  terms  of  man's  poHtical  evolution  for  the 
perpetuation  of  antagonism  between  nations,  or 
any  justification  for  the  plea  that  the  diminution 
of  such  antagonism  runs  coimter  to  the  teachings 
of  the  "natural  law."  There  is  no  such  natural 
law;  natural  laws  are  thrusting  men  irresistibly 
towards  co-operation  between  communities  and 
not  towards  conflict. 

There  remains  the  argument  that,  though  the 
conflict  itself  may  make  for  degeneration,  the 
preparation  for  that  conflict  makes  for  survival, 
for  the  improvement  of  himian  nature.  I  have 
already  touched  upon  the  hopeless  confusion 
which  comes  of  the  plea  that,  while  long-continued 
peace  is  bad,  military  preparations  find  their 
justification  in  the  plea  that  they  insure  peace. 

Mr.  Low,  in  the  passage  which  I  have  quoted, 
sneers  at  the  idea  of  peace  because  it  involves  the 
Cobdenite  state  of  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear. 


But  he  goes  on  to  argue  for  great  armaments, 
not  as  a  means  of  promoting  war,  that  valuable 
school,  etc.,  but  as  the  best  means  of  securing 
peace;  in  other  words,  that  condition  of  '* buying 
cheap  and  selling  dear"  which  but  a  moment 
before  he  had  condemned  as  so  defective. 
As  though  to  make  the  stultification  complete, 
he  pleads  for  the  peace  value  of  military  training, 
on  the  ground  that  German  commerce  has  bene- 
fited from  it — ^that,  in  other  words,  it  has  promoted 
the  ''Cobdenite  ideal."  The  analysis  of  the 
reasoning  gives  a  result  something  like  this:  (i) 
War  is  a  great  school  of  morals,  therefore  we 
must  have  great  armaments  to  insure  peace;  (2) 
secure  peace  engenders  the  Cobdenite  ideal, 
which  is  bad,  therefore  we  should  adopt  conscrip- 
tion, (a)  because  it  is  the  best  safeguard  of  secure 
peace,  (b)  because  it  is  an  excellent  training  for 
commerce — the   Cobdenite   ideal. 

Is  it  true  that  barrack  training — the  sort  of 
school  which  the  competition  of  armaments  during 
the  last  generation  has  imposed  on  the  people  of 
Continental  Europe — makes  for  moral  health? 
Is  it  likely  that  a  "perpetual  rehearsal  for  some- 
thing never  likely  to  come  off,  and  when  it  comes 
off  is  not  like  the  rehearsal,"  should  be  a  training 
for  life's  realities?  Is  it  likely  that  such  a  process 
would  have  the  stamp  and  touch  of  closeness  to 
real  things?  Is  it  likely  that  the  mechanical 
routine  of  artificial  occupations,  artificial  crimes, 


:l 


248 


The  Great  Illusion 


artificial  virtues,  artificial  punishments  should 
form  any  real  training  for  the  battle  of  real  life?' 
What  of  the  Dreyfus  case?  What  of  the  abomin- 
able scandals  that  have  marked  German  military 
Hfe  of  late  years?  If  peace  military  training 
is  such  a  fine  school,  how  could  the  Times  write 
thus  of  France  after  she  had  submitted  to  a  genera- 
tion of  a  very  severe  form  of  it : 

A  thrill  of  horror  and  shame  ran  through  the  whole 
civilized  world  outside  France  when  the  result  of  the 
Rennes  Court  Martial  became  known.  ...  By  their 
[the  ofl&cers']  own  admission,  whether  flung  idefiantly 
at  the  judges,  their  inferiors,  or  wrung  from  them 
under  cross-examination,  Dreyfus's  chief  accusers 
were  convicted  of  gross  and  fraudulent  illegalities 
which,  anjnvhere,  would  have  sufficed,  not  only  to 
discredit  their  testimony — had  they  any  serious  testi- 
mony to  offer— but  to  transfer  them  speedily  from  the 
witness-box  to  the  prisoner's  dock.  .  .  .  Their  vaun- 
ted honour  "  rooted  in  dishonour  stood."  .  .  .  Five 
judges  out  of  the  seven  have  once  more  demonstrated 
the  truth  of  the  astounding  axiom  first  propounded 
during  the  Zola  trial,  that  "military  justice  is  not  as 

»  "For  permanent  work  the  soldier  is  worse  than  useless;  his 
whole  training  tends  to  make  him  a  weakling.  He  has  the  easiest 
of  lives ;  he  has  no  freedom  and  no  responsibility .  He  is,  politically 
and  socially,  a  child,  with  rations  instead  of  rights— treated  like 
a  child,  pimished  like  a  child,  dressed  prettily  and  washed  and 
combed  like  a  child,  excused  for  outbreaks  of  naughtiness  like  a 
child,  forbidden  to  marry  like  a  child,  and  called  'Tommy' 
like  a  child.  He  has  no  real  work  to  keep  him  from  going  mad 
except  housemaid's  work  "  {John  Bulls  Otlier  Island), 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations       249 

other  justice. "...  We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that  the  Rennes  Court  Martial  constitutes  in  itself 
the  grossest,  and,  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  surround- 
ing circumstances,  the  most  appalling  prostitution 
of  justice  which  the  world  has  witnessed  in  mod- 
em times  .  .  .  Flagrantly,  deliberately,  mercilessly, 
trampled  justice  underfoot.  .  .  .  The  verdict,  which 
is  a  slap  in  the  face  to  the  public  opinion  of  the  civilized 
world,  to  the  conscience  of  humanity.  .  .  .  France 
is  henceforth  on  her  trial  before  history.    Arraigned 
at  the  bar  of  a  tribunal  far  higher  than  that  before 
which  Dreyfus   stood,   it   rests   with   her   to   show 
whether  she  will  undo  this  great  wrong  and  rehabilitate 
her  fair  name,  or  whether  she  will  stand  irrevocably 
condemned  and  disgraced  by  allowing  it  to  be  con- 
summated.    We  can  less  than  ever  afford  to  underrate 
the  forces  against  truth  and  justice.  .  .  .  Hypnotized 
by  the  wild  tales  perpetually  dinned  into  all  credulous 
ears  of  an  international  "  syndicate  of  treason,"  con- 
spiring against  the  honour  of  the  army  and  the  safety 
of  France,  the  conscience  of  the  French  nation  has 
been  nmnbed,  and  its  intelligence  atrophied.   .  .  . 
Amongst  those  statesmen  who  are  in  touch  with  the 
outside  world  in  the  Senate  and  Chamber  there  must 
be  some  that  will  remind  her  that  nations,  no  more 
than  individuals,  can  bear  the  burden  of  universal 
scorn  and  live.  .  .  .  France  cannot  close  her  ears  to 
the  voice  of  the  civilized  world,  for  that  voice  is  the 
voice  of  history  [September  11,  1899]. 

And  what  the  Times  said  then  all  England  was 
saying,  and  not  only  all  England,  but  all  America. 


I 


M 


250 


The  Great  Illusion 


And  has  Germany  escaped  a  like  condemnation? 
We  commonly  assume  that  the  Dreyfus  case  could 
not  be  duplicated  in  Germany.  But  this  is  not 
the  opinion  of  very  many  Germans  themselves. 
Indeed,  just  before  the  Dreyfus  case  reached  its 
crisis,  the  Kotze  scandal — ^in  its  way  just  as 
grave  as  the  Dreyfus  affair,  and  revealing  a  mili- 
tary condition  just  as  serious — ^prompted  the 
Times  to  declare  that  "certain  features  of  German 
civilization  are  such  as  to  make  it  difficult  for 
Englishmen  to  imderstand  how  the  whole  State 
does  not  collapse  from  sheer  rottenness. "  And  if 
that  could  be  said  of  the  Kotze  scandal,  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  state  of  things  which,  among 
others,  has  been  revealed  by  Maximilian  Harden? 

Need  it  be  said  that  the  writer  of  these  lines 
does  not  desire  to  represent  Germans  as  a  whole 
as  more  corrupt  than  their  neighbours?  But 
impartial  observers  are  not  of  opinion,  and  very 
many  Germans  are  not  of  opinion,  that  there  has 
been  either  economic,  social,  or  moral  advantage 
to  the  German  people  from  the  victories  of  1870 
and  the  state  of  regimentation  which  the  sequel 
has  imposed.  This  is  surely  evidenced  by  the 
actual  position  of  affairs  in  the  German  Empire, 
the  complex  difficulty  with  which  the  German 
people  are  now  struggling,  the  growing  discontent, 
the  growing  influence  of  those  elements  which  are 
nurtured  in  discontent,  the  growth  on  one  side  of 
radical  intransigeance  and  on  the  other  of  almost 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      251 

feudal  autocracy,  the  failtu-e  to  effect  normally 
and  easily  those  democratic  developments  which 
have  been  effected  in  almost  every  other  European 
State,  the  danger  for  the  future  which  such  a 
situation  represents,  the  precariousness  of  German 
finance,  the  relatively  small  benefit  which  her  popu- 
lation as  a  whole  has  received  from  the  greatly 
increased  foreign  trade — all  this,  and  much  more, 
confirms  that  view.  England  seems  to  be  affected 
with  the  German  superstition  jxist  now.  With 
the  curious  perversity  that  marks  "patriotic" 
judgments,  the  whole  tendency  at  present  is  to 
make  comparisons  with  Germany  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  ourselves  and  of  other  European 
countries.  Yet  if  Germans  themselves  are  to 
be  believed,  much  of  that  superiority  which  we 
see  in  Germany  is  as  ptirely  non-existent  as  the 
phantom  German  war-balloon  to  which  ottr 
Press  devoted  serious  colimins,  to  the  phantom 
army  corps  in  Epping  Forest,  to  the  phantom 
stores  of  arms  in  London  cellars,  and  to  the 
German  spy  which  oiu*  patriots  see  in  every  Italian 
waiter.  * 

Despite  the  h3rpnotism  which  German  "pro- 
gress" seems  to  exercise  on  the  minds  of  British 

»  Things  must  have  reached  a  pretty  pass  in  England  when  the 
owner  of  the  Daily  Mail  and  the  patron  of  Mr.  Blatchford  can 
devote  a  column  and  a  half  over  his  own  signature  to  reproaching 
in  vigorous  terms  the  hysteria  and  sensationalism  of  his  own 
readers. 


m 


' 


252 


The  Great  Illusion 


Jingoes,  the  German  people  themselves,  as  distinct 
from  the  small  group  of  Prussian  Junkers,  are 
not  in  the  least  enamoured  of  it,  as  is  proved  by 
the  unparalleled  growth  of  the  social  democratic 
element,  which  is  the  negation  of  military  im- 
perialism, and  which,  as  the  figures  in  Prussia 
prove,  receives  support  not  from  one  class  of  the 
population  merely,  but  from  the  mercantile, 
industrial,  and  professional  classes  as  well.  The 
agitation  for  electoral  reform  in  Prussia  shows 
how  acute  the  conflict  has  become:  on  the  one 
side  the  increasing  democratic  element  showing 
more  and  more  of  a  revolutionary  tendency, 
and  on  the  other  side  the  Prussian  autocracy 
showing  less  and  less  disposition  to  yield.  Does 
any  one  really  beHeve  that  the  situation  will 
remain  there,  that  the  Democratic  parties  will 
continue  to  grow  in  numbers  and  be  content  for 
ever  to  be  ridden  down  by  the  "booted  Prussian, " 
and  that  German  democracy  will  indefinitely 
accept  a  situation  in  which  it  will  be  always 
possible — ^in  the  words  of  the  Jimker  von  Olden- 
burg, member  of  the  Reichstag — for  the  German 
Emperor  to  say  to  a  lieutenant,  "Take  ten  men 
and  close  the  Reichstag".^' 

« I  take  the  following  from  the  Anti-SocialisHsche  Korresponi- 
denz:  "The  social  democratic  problem,  and  the  social  problem 
in  general,  are  becoming  more  difficult  and  more  acute.  The 
social  democracy  at  the  present  moment  is  more  than  ever  a 
party  ol  class;  it  is  at  bottom  losing  nothing  of  its  revolutionary 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      253 

Has  not  the  last  ten  years,  indeed,  revealed  very 
striking  symptoms  in  this  respect?  Was  not  the 
outburst  of  German  public  opinion  which  followed 
the  publication  of  the  Kaiser^s  interview  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph,  and  the  still  more  unprecedented 
attitude  of  abject  apology  adopted  by  the  Chan- 
cellor on  that  occasion,  a  revelation  of  the  change 
in  German  spirit  which  has  taken  place  within  the 
last  decade?  It  may  be  urged,  indeed,  that  the 
whole  outcry  rapidly  died  down;  but  does  it  not 
show  a  tremendous  gulf  separating  us  from  the 
time  when  Use-majeste  prosecutions  were  counted 
by  thousands,  when  the  punishments  therefor 
ran  in  the  sum  to  some  thousands  of  years  of 

character."  We  know  what  the  social  democracy  party  is — con- 
trols twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  votes  in  the  Reichstag,  owns 
seventy-four  daily  papers,  and  has  a  revenue  of  considerably  over 
a  million  marks  a  year.  Professor  Delbruck,  the  editor  of  the 
Preussische  Jahrbiicher,  prophesies  that  the  Socialists  will  have 
one  himdred  and  twenty  seats  in  the  next  Reichstag  (at  present 
they  hold  forty-nine). 

The  following  from  the  Berlin  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Mail 
(August  I,  19 10)  is  suggestive:  "The  tide  of  German  Socialism 
still  rises.  The  victory  in  the  Reichstag  by-election  in  Wurtem- 
burg  again  points  to  a  problem  which  must  dwarf  all  others  in 
the  minds  of  German  statesmen.  The  Socialists  have  achieved 
the  extraordinary  feat  of  winning  seven  Reichstag  by-elections 
in  succession.  The  approach  of  the  191 1  elections  makes  the 
phenomenon  all  the  more  alarming  from  the  Government's  point 
of  view.  Pre-eminent  among  the  causes  of  the  'red  flood'  is 
Prince  Bulow's  failure  with  his  Finance  Reform  Bill  in  face  of 
the  opposition  of  the  Extreme  Conservatives,  and  Herr  von 
Bethmann-HoUweg's  imfortunate  attempt  at  franchise  reform 
in  Prussia." 


I' 


254 


The  Great  Illusion 


i 


imprisonment,  and  when  such  convictions  included 
lads  in  their  teens  and  the  venerable  rectors  of 
Universities. 

But  what  must  be  the  German's  appreciation 
of  the  value  of  military  victory  and  militarization 
when,  mainly  because  of  such,  he  finds  himself 
engaged  in  a  struggle  which  elsewhere  less  mili- 
tarized nations  settled  a  generation  since?  And 
what  has  the  Enghsh  defender  of  the  militarist 
regimen,  who  holds  the  German  system  up  for 
imitation,  to  say  of  it  as  a  school  of  national  dis- 
cipline, when  the  Imperial  Chancellor  himself 
defends  the  refusal  of  democratic  suffrage  like 
that  obtaining  in  England  on  the  ground  that  the 
Prussian  people  have  not  yet  acquired  those 
qualities  of  public  discipline  which  make  it  work- 
able in  England? 

Yet  what  Prussia  in  the  opinion  of  the  Chan- 
cellor is  not  yet  fit  for,  Scandinavian  nations, 
Switzerland,  Holland,  Belgium  have  fitted  them- 
selves for  without  the  aid  of  military  victory  and 
subsequent  regimentation.  Did  not  some  one 
once  say  that  the  war  had  made  Germany  great 
and  Germans  small?' 

'  Mr.  Dawson  {The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany,  page  i6) 
says:  "It  is  questionable  whether  Germany  counts  as  much 
to-day  as  an  intellectual  and  moral  agent  in  the  world  as 
when  she  was  little  better  than  a  geographical  expression.  .  .  . 
When  it  comes  to  working  with  human  material  the  German 
system  [of  education]  breaks  down.  .  .  .  German  systems  of 
education  are  very  far  from  being  successful  in  the  making  of 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      255 


When  we  ascribe  so  large  a  measure  of  Ger- 
many's social  progress  (which  no  one  as  far  as  I 
know  is  concerned  to  deny)  to  the  victories  and 
regimentation,  why  do  we  conveniently  overlook 
the  social  progress  of  the  small  States  which  I 
have  just  mentioned,  where  such  progress  on  the 
material  side  has  certainly  been  as  great  as,  and  on 
the  moral  side  greater  than,  in  Germany?  Why 
do  we  overlook  the  fact  that,  if  Germany  has 
done  well  in  certain  social  organizations,  Scan- 
dinavia and  Switzerland  have  done  better?  And 
why  do  we  overlook  the  fact  that,  if  regimentation 
is  of  such  social  value,  it  has  been  so  completely 
inoperative  in  States  which  are  more  highly 
militarized  even  than  Germany — ^in  Turkey,  in 
Russia? 

But  even  assuming — a  very  large  assimiption — 
that  regimentation  has  played  the  r61e  in  German 
progress  which  our  Germano-maniacs  would  have 
us  believe,  is  there  any  justification  for  supposing 
that  a  like  process  would  be  in  any  way  adapt- 
able to  English  conditions,  social,  moral,  material, 
and  historical? 

Some  of  the  acutest  foreign  students  of  English 
progress — men  Hke  Edmond  Demolins — ascribe 
such  to  the  very  range  of  qualities  which  the 
German  system  is  bound  to  crush:  our  aptitude 

character  and  individuality.  Educated  Germans  know  this: 
hence  the  discontent  of  the  enlightened  classes  with  the  political 
laws  under  which  they  live." 


1 


256 


The  Great  Illusion 


for  initiative,  our  reliance  upon  our  own  efforts, 
our  sturdy  resistance  to  State  interference  (al- 
ready weakening),  our  impatience  with  bureau- 
cracy and  red  tape  (also  weakening),  all  of 
which  is  wrapped  up  with  our  general  rebellious- 
ness toward  regimentation. 

Though  we  base  part  of  the  defence  of  arma- 
ments on  the  plea  that,  economic  interest  apart, 
we  desire  to  live  our  own  life  in  our  own  way,  to 
develop  in  our  own  fashion,  is  there  no  danger  that 
with  this  mania  for  the  imitation  of  German 
method  Englishmen  may  Germanize  England, 
though  never  a  German  soldier  land  on  English 
soil? 

Of  course  EngHshmen  argue  thus:  that,  though 
we  may  adopt  the  French  and  German  system  of 
conscription,  we  could  never  fall  a  victim  to  the 
defects  of  those  systems,  and  that  the  scandals 
which  break  out  from  time  to  time  in  France  and 
Germany  could  never  be  duplicated  by  our 
barrack  system,  and  that  the  military  atmosphere 
of  our  own  barracks,  the  training  in  oiu-  own 
army,  would  always  be  wholesome.  But  what 
do  even  its  defenders  say? 

Mr.  Blatchford  himself  says': 

Barrack  life  is  bad.  Barrack  life  will  always  be  bad. 
It  is  never  good  for  a  lot  of  men  to  live  together  apart 
from  home  influences  and  feminine.     It  is  not  good 

'  See  also  the  confinnatory  verdict  of  Captain  March  Phillips 
quoted  in  the  next  chapter. 


Survival  of  Warlike  Nations      257 

for  women  to  live  or  work  in  communities  of  women. 
The  sexes  react  upon  each  other;  each  provides  for 
the  other  a  natural  restraint,  a  wholesome  incentive. 
.  .  .  The  barracks  and  the  garrison  town  are  not 
good  for  young  men.  The  young  soldier,  fenced  and 
hemmed  in  by  a  discipline  unnecessarily  severe,  and 
often  stupid,  has  at  the  same  time  an  amount  of  licence 
which  is  dangerous  to  all  but  those  of  strong  good- 
sense  and  strong  will.  I  have  seen  clean,  good,  nice 
boys  come  into  the  Army  and  go  to  the  devil  in  less 
than  a  year.  I  am  no  Puritan.  I  am  a  man  of  the 
world;  but  any  sensible  and  honest  man  who  has  been 
in  the  Army  will  know  at  once  that  what  I  am  saying  is 
entirely  true,  and  is  the  truth  expressed  with  much 
restraint  and  moderation.  A  few  hours  in  a  barrack- 
room  would  teach  a  civilian  more  than  all  the  soldier 
stories  ever  written.  When  I  joined  the  Army  I  was 
unusually  unsophisticated  for  a  boy  of  twenty.  I  had 
been  brought  up  by  a  mother.  I  had  attended  Sun- 
day-school and  chapel.  I  had  lived  a  quiet,  sheltered 
life,  and  I  had  an  astonishing  amount  to  learn.  The 
language  of  the  barrack-room  shocked  me,  appalled 
me.  I  could  not  understand  half  I  heard ;  I  could  not 
credit  much  that  I  saw.  When  I  began  to  realize 
the  truth,  I  took  my  courage  in  both  hands  and  went 
about  the  world  I  had  come  into  with  open  eyes.  So 
I  learnt  the  facts,  but  I  must  not  tell  them,' 

*  My  Life  in  the  Army,  p.  119. 


ill 


')  I 


■, 


■I  I 

,v 
111 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    DIMINISHING    FACTOR    OF    PHYSICAL    FORCE: 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  RESULTS 

Diminishing  factor  of  physical  force — Though  diminishing, 
physical  force  has  always  been  important  in  himian  affairs — 
What  is  imderlying  principle,  determining  advantageous 
and  disadvantageous  use  of  physical  force? — Force  that  aids 
co-operation  in  accord  with  law  of  man's  advance ;  force  that 
is  exercised  for  parasitism  in  convict  with  such  law  and  dis- 
advantageous for  both  parties — Historical  process  of  the 
abandonment  of  physical  force — The  Kahn  and  the  London 
tiadesman — Ancient  Rome  and  modem  Britain — The  senti- 
mental defence  of  war  as  the  purifier  of  human  life — The 
facts — The  redirection  of  himaan  pugnacity. 

DESPITE  the  general  tendency  indicated  by 
the  facts  touched  on  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  it  will  be  urged  (with  perfect  justice) 
that,  though  the  methods  of  Anglo-Saxondom 
as  compared  with  those  of  the  Spanish,  Portu- 
guese, and  French  Empires,  may  have  been 
mainly  commercial  and  industrial  rather  than 
military,  war  was  a  necessary  part  of  expansion; 
that  but  for  some  fighting  the  Anglo-Saxons  would 
have  been  ousted  from  North  America  or  Asia, 
or  woiild  never  have  gained  a  footing  there. 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force      259 

Does  this,  however,  prevent  us  establishing  on 
the  basis  of  the  facts  exposed  in  the  preceding 
chapter  a  general  principle  sufficiently  definite  to 
serve  as  a  practical  guide  in  policy,  and  to  indicate 
reliably  a  general  tendency  in  human  affairs? 
Assuredly  not.  The  principle  which  explains 
the  uselessness  of  much  of  the  force  exerted  by 
the  military  type  of  empire,  and  justifies  in  large 
part  that  employed  by  Britain,  is  neither  obscure 
nor  uncertain,  although  empiricism,  rule  of  thumb 
(which  is  the  curse  of  political  thinking  in  our  days, 
and  more  than  anything  else  stands  in  the  way  of 
real  progress),  gets  over  the  difficulty  by  declaring 
that  no  principle  in  human  affairs  can  be  pushed 
to  its  logical  or  theoretical  conclusion;  that  what 
may  be  "  right  in  theory"  is  wrong  in  practice. 

Thus  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  expresses  with  such 
admirable  force  and  vigour  the  average  thoughts 
of  his  hearers  or  readers,  generally  takes  this  Hne  : 
We  must  be  peaceful,  but  not  too  peaceful; 
warlike,  but  not  too  warlike;  moral,  but  not  too 
moral. ' 

With  such  verbal  mystification  are  we  encour- 
aged to  shirk  the  rough  and  stony  places  along  the 
hard  road  of  thinking.  If  we  cannot  carry  a 
principle  to  its  logical  conclusion,  at  what  point 
are  we  to  stop?     One  will  fix  one  and  one  another 

*  I  do  not  think  this  last  generalization  does  any  injustice  to 
the  essay  "Latitude  and  Longitude  among  Reformers"  {Strenu- 
ous Life,  pp.  41-61. 


26o 


The  Great  Illusion 


!*i 


lii;'  > 


\% 


with  equal  justice.  What  is  it  to  be  "moderately" 
peaceful,  or  "moderately"  warlike?  Tempera- 
ment and  predilection  can  stretch  such  limitations 
indefinitely.  This  sort  of  thing  only  darkens 
counsel. 

If  a  theory  is  right,  it  can  be  pushed  to  its 
logical  conclusion ;  indeed,  the  only  real  test  of  its 
value  is  that  it  can  be  pushed  to  its  logical  conclu- 
sion. If  it  is  wrong  in  practice,  it  is  wrong  in 
theory,  for  the  right  theory  will  take  cognizance 
of  all  the  facts,  not  only  of  one  set. 

In  Chapter  II.  of  this  part  (p.  161-6),  I  have 
very  broadly  indicated  the  process  by  which  the 
employment  of  physical  force  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world  has  been  a  constantly  diminishing  factor 
since  the  day  that  primitive  man  killed  his  fellow 
man  in  order  to  eat  him.  Yet  throughout  the 
whole  process  the  employment  of  force  has  been 
an  integral  part  of  progress,  until  even  to-day  in 
the  most  advanced  nations  force — the  police- 
force — ^is  an  integral  part  of  their  civiUzation. 

What,  then,  is  the  principle  determining  the 
advantageous  and  the  disadvantageous  employ- 
ment of  force? 

Preceding  the  outline  sketch  just  referred  to, 
is  another  sketch  indicating  the  real  biological 
law  of  man's  survival  and  advance;  the  key  to 
that  law  is  foimd  in  co-operation  between  men 
and  struggle  with  nature.  Mankind  as  a  whole 
is  the  organism  which  needs  to  co-ordinate  its 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     261 

parts  in  order  to  insure  greater  vitality  by  better 
adaptation  to  its  environment. 

Here,  then,  we  get  the  key:  force  employed  to 
secure  completer  co-operation  between  the  parts 
makes  for  advance;  force  which  runs  counter  to 
such  co-operation,  which  is  in  any  way  a  form  of 
parasitism,  makes  for  retrogression. 

Why  is  the  employment  of  force  by  the  police 
justified?  Because  the  bandit  refuses  to  co- 
operate. He  does  not  want  to  do  his  work,  and 
live  by  what  it  is  worth;  he  wants  to  live  as  a 
parasite,  to  take  wealth,  and  give  nothing  in 
exchange.  If  he  increased  in  ntmibers,  co-opera- 
tion between  the  various  parts  of  the  organism 
would  be  impossible;  he  makes  for  disintegration. 
He  must  be  restrained,  and  so  long  as  the  police 
use  their  force  in  such  restraint  they  are  merely 
insuring  co-operation.  The  police  are  not  strug- 
gling against  man;  they  are  struggling  with 
nature — crime. 

Now,  suppose  that  this  police-force  becomes 
the  army  of  a  political  Power  and  the  diplomats  of 
that  Power  say  to  a  smaller  one:  "We  outnumber 
you;  we  are  going  to  annex  your  territory,  and  you 
are  going  to  pay  us  tribute."  And  the  smaller 
Power  says:  "What  are  you  going  to  give  us  for 
that  tribute?"  And  the  larger  replies :  "Nothing. 
You  are  weak;  we  are  strong;  we  gobble  you  up. 
It  is  the  law  of  life;  always  has  been — always 
will  be  to  the  end. " 


m 


262 


The  Great  Illusion 


^i: 


11 


Now,  that  police-force,  become  an  army,  is  no 
longer  making  for  co-operation;  it  has  simply  and 
purely  taken  the  place  of  the  bandits;  and  to 
approximate  such  an  army  to  a  police-force,  and 
to  say  that  because  both  operations  involve  the 
employment  of  force  they  both  stand  equally 
justified,  is  to  ignore  half  the  facts,  and  to  be 
guilty  of  those  lazy  generalizations  which  we 
associate  with  savagery. 

But  the  difference  is  more  than  a  moral  one. 
If  the  reader  will  again  return  to  the  little  sketch 
referred  to  on  a  preceding  page,  he  will  probably 
agree  that  the  diplomats  of  the  larger  power  are 
acting  in  an  extraordinarily  stupid  fashion.  I 
say  nothing  of  their  sham  philosophy  (which 
happens,  however,  to  be  that  of  European  state- 
craft to-day),  by  which  this  aggression  is  made 
to  appear  in  keeping  with  the  law  of  man's  struggle 
for  life,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  the  very 
negation  of  that  law;  but  we  know  now  that  they 
are  taking  a  coiu"se  which  gives  the  least  result, 
even  from  their  point  of  view,  for  the  effort 
expended. 

Here  we  get  the  key  also  to  the  difference  be- 
tween the  respective  histories  of  the  military 
empires,  like  Spain,  France,  and  I^ortugal,  and 
the  more  industrial  type,  like  England,  which  has 
been  touched  upon  in  the  preceding  chapter. 
Not  the  mere  hazard  of  war,  not  a  question  of 
mere   efficiency    in    the    employment    of    force, 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     263 

has  given  to  Great  Britain  influence  in  half  a 
world,  and  taken  it  from  Spain,  but  a  radical, 
fundamental  difference  in  underlying  principles, 
however  imperfectly  realized.  England's  exercise 
of  force  has  approximated  on  the  whole  to  the 
r61e  of  police;  Spain's  to  that  of  the  diplomats  of 
the  suppositious  Power  just  referred  to.  Eng- 
land's has  made  for  co-operation;  Spain's  for  the 
embarrassment  of  co-operation.  England's  has 
been  in  keeping  with  the  real  law  of  man's  struggle; 
Spain's  in  keeping  with  the  sham  law,  which  the 
"blood  and  iron"  empiricists  are  for  ever  throwing 
at  our  heads.  For  what  has  happened  to  all 
attempts  to  Hve  on  extorted  tribute?  They 
have  all  failed — failed  miserably  and  utterly' — to 
such  an  extent  that  to-day  the  exaction  of  tribute 
has  become  an  economic  impossibility. 

If,  however,  our  suppositious  diplomats,  instead 
of  asking  for  tribute,  had  said:  *'Your  country  is 
in  disorder;  your  police  is  insufficient;  our  mer- 
chants are  robbed  and  killed;  we  will  lend  you 
police  and  help  you  to  maintain  order.  You  will 
pay  the  police  their  just  wage,  and  that  is  all," 
and  had  honestly  kept  to  this  office,  their  exercise 
of  force  would  have  aided  human  co-operation, 
not  checked  it.  Again,  it  would  have  been  a 
struggle,  not  against  man,  but  against  crime; 
the    ** predominant    Power"    would   have   been 

»  See  Chapter  VIL,  Part  I. 


il 


I 


264 


The  Great  Illusion 


1 


living,  not  on  other  men,  but  by  more  efficient 
organization  of  man's  fight  with  nature. 

That  is  why  in  the  first  section  of  this  book  I 
have  laid  emphasis  on  the  truth  that  the  justifica- 
tion of  past  wars  has  no  bearing  on  the  problem 
which  confronts  us:  the  precise  degree  of  fighting 
which  was  necessary  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago  is  a  somewhat  academic  problem.  The  de- 
gree of  fighting  which  is  necessary  to-day  is  the 
problem  which  confronts  us,  and  a  great  many 
factors  have  been  introduced  into  the  problem 
since  England  won  India  and  North  America. 
The  face  of  the  world  has  changed,  and  the  factors 
of  conflict  have  changed  radically:  to  ignore 
that  is  to  ignore  facts  and  to  be  guided  by  the 
worst  form  of  theorizing  and  sent  imentaHsm — 
the  theorizing  that  will  not  recognize  the  facts. 
England  does  not  need  to  maintain  order  in 
Germany,  nor  Germany  in  France;  and  the 
struggle  between  those  nations  is  no  part  of 
man's  struggle  with  nature — ^has  no  justification 
in  the  real  law  of  human  struggle;  it  is  an  anach- 
ronism; it  finds  its  justification  in  a  sham  philo- 
sophy that  will  not  bear  the  test  of  facts,  and, 
responding  to  no  real  need,  and  achieving  no  real 
purpose,  is  bound  with  increasing  enlightenment 
to  come  to  an  end. 

I  wish  it  were  not  everlastingly  necessary  to 
reiterate  the  fact  that  the  world  has  moved.  Yet 
for  the  purposes  of  this  discussion  it  is.     If  to-day 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     265 

an  Italian  warship  were  suddenly  to  bombard 
Liverpool  without  warning,  the  Bourse  in  Rome 
would  present  a  condition,  and  the  bank-rate  in 
Rome  would  take  a  jiunp  that  would  ruin  tens 
of  thousands  of  Italians — do  far  more  injury, 
probably,  to  Italy  than  to  England.  Yet  if  five 
hundred  years  ago  Italian  pirates  had  landed 
from  the  Thames  and  sacked  London  itself,  not 
an  Italian  in  Italy  would  have  been  a  penny  the 
worse  for  it. 

Is  it  seriously  urged  that  in  the  matter  of  the 
exercise  of  physical  force  therefore  there  is  no 
difference  in  these  two  conditions:  and  is  it 
seriously  urged  that  the  psychological  phenomena 
which  go  with  the  exercise  of  physical  force  are 
to  remain  unaffected? 

The  preceding  chapter  is,  indeed,  the  historical 
justification  of  the  economic  truths  estabhshed  in 
the  first  section  of  this  book  in  the  terms  of  the 
facts  of  the  present-day  world,  which  show  that 
the  predominating  factor  in  survival  is  shifting 
from  the  physical  to  the  intellectual  plane.  This 
evolutionary  process  has  now  reached  a  point 
in  international  affairs  which  involves  the  com- 
plete economic  futility  of  military  force.  In  the 
last  chapter  but  one  I  dealt  with  the  psychological 
consequence  of  this  profoimd  change  in  the  nature 
of  man's  normal  activities,  showing  that  his 
natiu-e  is  coming  more  and  more  to  adapt  itself 
to  what  he  normally  and  for  the  greater  part 


266 


The  Great  Illusion 


w 


I 


I:i> 


i«ii 


I: 


of  his  life — ^in  most  cases  all  his  life — is  engaged  in, 
and  is  losing  the  impulses  concerned  with  an 
abnormal  and  unusual  occupation. 

Why  have  I  presented  the  facts  in  this  order, 
dealt  with  the  psychological  result  involved  in  this 
change  before  the  change  itself?  I  have  adopted 
this  order  of  treatment  because  the  believer 
in  war  justifies  his  dogmatism  for  the  most  part 
by  an  appeal  to  what  he  alleges  is  the  one  dominat- 
ing fact  of  the  situation — L  e.,  that  himian  nature 
is  imchanging.  Well,  as  will  be  seen  from  the 
penultimate  chapter,  such  alleged  fact  does  not 
bear  investigation.  Human  nature  is  changing 
out  of  all  recognition.  Not  only  is  man  fighting 
less,  but  he  is  using  all  forms  of  physical  compul- 
sion less,  and  as  a  very  natiu-al  result  is  losing 
those  psychological  attributes  that  go  with  the 
employment  of  physical  force.  And  he  is  coming 
to  employ  physical  force  less  because  accumulated 
evidence  is  pushing  him  more  and  more  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  can  accomplish  more  easily 
that  which  he  strives  for  by  other  means. 

Few  of  us  reaHze  to  what  extent  economic 
pressiu-e — and  I  use  that  term  in  its  just  sense, 
as  meaning,  not  only  the  struggle  for  money,  but 
everything  implied  therein,  well-being,  social 
consideration,  and  the  rest — has  replaced  physical 
force  in  human  affairs.  The  primitive  mind 
could  not  conceive  a  world  in  which  everything 
was  not  regulated  by  force:  even  the  great  minds 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     267 

of  antiquity  could  not  believe  the  world  would  be 
an  industrious  one  imless  the  great  mass  were 
made  industrious  by  the  use  of  physical  force — 
i.  e.,  by  slavery.     Three  fourths  of  those  who 
peopled  what  is  now  Italy  in  Rome's  palmiest  days 
were  slaves,  chained  in  the  fields  when  at  work, 
chained  at  night  in  their  dormitories,  and  those 
who  were  porters  chained  to  the  doorways.     It 
was  a  society  of  slavery — ^fighting  slaves,  working 
slaves,  cultivating  slaves,  official  slaves,  and  Gib- 
bon adds  that  the  Emperor  himself  was  a  slave, 
"the  first  slave  to  the  ceremonies  he  imposed." 
Great  and  penetrating  as  were  many  of  the  minds 
of  antiquity,  none  of  them  show  much  conception 
of  any  condition  of  society  in  which  the  economic 
impulse  could  replace  physical  compulsion.     And 
had  they  been  told  that  the  time  would  come  when 
the  world  would  work  very  much  harder  imder  the 
impulse  of  an  abstract  thing  known  as  economic 
interest,  they  would  have  regarded  such  a  state- 
ment  as   that  of  a  mere   sentimental   theorist. 
Indeed,  one  need  not  go  so  far:  if  one  had  told  an 
American  slave-holder  of  sixty  years  since  that 
the   time   would   come   when   the   South   would 
produce  more  cotton  imder  the  free  pressure  of 
economic  forces  than  imder  slavery,  he  would  have 
made  a  like  reply.    He  would  probably  have 
declared  that   "a  good  cowhide  whip  beats  all 
economic   pressure" — ^pretty   much    the    sort   of 
thing  that  one  may  hear  from  the  mouth  of  the 


i>' 


III 


:m 


* 


I 


268 


The  Great  Illusion 


average  militarist  to-day.  Very  ''practicar*  and 
virile,  of  course,  but  it  has  the  disadvantage  of 
not  being  true. 

And  the  presumed  necessity  for  physical  com- 
pulsion did  not  stop  at  slavery.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  it  was  accepted  as  an  axiom  in 
statecraft  that  men's  religious  beliefs  had  to  be 
forcibly  restrained,  and  not  merely  their  religious 
belief,  but  their  very  clothing;  and  we  have  him- 
dreds  of  years  of  complicated  sumptuary  laws, 
hundreds  of  years,  also,  of  forcible  control,  or, 
rather,  the  attempted  forcible  control,  of  prices  and 
trade,  the  elaborate  system  of  monopolies,  abso- 
lute prohibition  of  the  entrance  into  the  coimtry 
of  certain  foreign  goods,  the  violation  of  which 
prohibition  was  treated  as  a  penal  offence.  We 
had  even  the  use  of  forced  money,  the  refusal  to 
accept  which  was  treated  as  a  penal  offence.  In 
many  coimtries  for  years  it  was  a  crime  to  send 
gold  abroad — all  indicating  the  domination  of  the 
mind  of  man  by  the  same  curious  obsession  that 
man's  life  must  be  ruled  by  physical  force,  and 
it  is  only  very  slowly  and  very  painfully  that  we 
have  arrived  at  the  truth  that  men  will  work  best 
when  left  to  unseen  and  invisible  forces.  And  a 
world  in  which  physical  force  was  withdrawn 
from  the  regulation  of  men's  labour,  faith,  clothes, 
trade,  language,  travel,  would  have  been  absolutely 
inconceivable  to  even  the  best  minds  during  the 
three  or  fotu-  thousand  years  of  history  which 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     269 

mainly  concern  us.  What  is  the  central  ex-, 
planation  of  the  profound  change  involved  here — 
the  shifting  of  the  pivot  in  all  human  affairs  in 
so  far  as  they  touch  both  the  individual  and  the 
community,  from  physical  ponderable  forces  to 
economic  imponderable  forces?  It  is  surely  that, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  latter  forces  accom- 
plish the  desired  result  more  efficiently  and  more 
readily  than  do  the  former,  which  even  when  they 
are  not  completely  futile  are  in  comparison  waste- 
ful and  stultifying.  It  is  the  law  of  the  economy 
of  effort.  Indeed,  the  use  of  physical  force  usu- 
ally involves  on  those  employing  it  the  same 
limitation  of  freedom  (even  if  in  lesser  degree) 
as  that  which  it  is  desired  to  impose.  Herbert 
Spencer  illustrates  the  process  in  the  following 
suggestive  passage : 

The  exercise  of  mastery  inevitably  entails  on  the 
master  himself  some  sort  of  slavery  more  or  less 
pronounced.  The  uncultured  masses  and  even  the 
greater  part  of  the  cultured  will  regard  this  statement 
as  absurd,  and  though  many  who  have  read  history 
with  an  eye  to  essentials  rather  than  to  trivialities 
know  that  this  is  a  paradox  in  the  right  sense — that 
is,  true  in  fact  though  not  seeming  true — even  they 
are  not  fully  conscious  of  the  mass  of  evidence  estab- 
lishing it  and  will  be  all  the  better  for  having  illustra- 
tions recalled.  Let  me  begin  with  the  earliest  and 
simplest  which  serves  to  symbolize  the  whole. 

Here  is  a  prisoner,  with  his  hands  tied  and  a  cord 


\ 


270 


The  Great  Illusion 


lit 


il 


I 


.round  his  neck  (as  suggested  by  figures  in  Assyrian 
bas-reliefs),  being  led  home  by  his  savage  conqueror, 
who  intends  to  make  him  a  slave.     The  one  you  say  is 
captive  and  the  other  free.     Are  you  quite  sure  the 
other  is  free  ?     He  holds  one  end  of  the  cord  and,  unless 
he  means  his  captive  to  escape,  he  must  continue  to  be 
fastened  by  keeping  hold  of  the  cord  in  such  way  that 
It  cannot  easily  be  detached.     He  must  be  himself 
tied  to  the  captive  while  the  captive  is  tied  to  him.     In 
other  ways  his  activities  are  impeded  and  certain 
burdens  are  imposed  on  him.     A  wild  animal  crosses 
the  track  and  he  cannot  pursue.    If  he  wishes  to 
drink  of  the  adjacent  stream  he  must  tie  up  his  cap- 
tive lest  advantage  be  taken  of  his  defenceless  position. 
Moreover,   he  has  to   provide   food   for  both.     In 
various  ways  he  is  no  longer,  then,  completely  at 
liberty;   and  these  worries  adumbrate  in   a   simple 
manner  the  universal  truth  that  the  instrumentalities 
by  which  the  subordination  of  others  is  effected  them- 
selves subordinate  the  victor,  the  master,  or  the  ruler.  ^ 

Thus  it  comes  that  all  nations  attempting  to  live 
by  conquest  end  by  being  themselves  the  victims 
of  a  military  tyranny  precisely  similar  to  that 
which  they  hope  to  inflict ;  or,  in  other  terms,  that 
the  attempt  to  impose  by  force  of  arms  a  dis- 
advantageous commercial  situation  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  conqueror  ends  in  the  conqueror's 
falling  a  victim  to  the  very  disadvantages  from 
which  he  hoped  by  a  process  of  spoliation  to  profit. 

*  Facts  and  Comments,  p.  112. 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     271 

But  the  truth  that  economic  force  always  in 
the    long    run    outweighs    physical    or    military 
force  is  illustrated  by  the  simple  fact  of  the  uni- 
versal use  of  money — the  fact  that  the  use  of 
money  is  not  a  thing  which  we  choose  or  can  shake 
off,  but  a  thing  imposed  by  the  operation  of  forces 
stronger   than   our   volition,    stronger   than   the 
tyranny  of  the  cruellest  tyrant  who  ever  reigned 
by  blood  and  iron.     I  think  it  is  one  of  the  most 
astounding  things,  to  the  man  who  takes  a  fairly 
fresh  mind  to  the  study  of  history,  that  the  most 
absolute  despots — men  who  can   command   the 
lives  of  their  subjects  with  a  completeness  and  a 
nonchalance  of  which  the  modern  western  world 
furnishes  no  parallel — cannot  command  money. 
One  asks  oneself,  indeed,  why  such  an  absolute 
ruler,  able  as  he  is  by  the  sheer  might  of  his 
position  and  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  power  to 
take  everything  that  exists  in  his  kingdom,  and 
able  as  he  is  to  exact  every  sort  and  character  of 
service,  needs  money,  which  is  the  means  of  ob- 
taining goods  or  services  by  a  freely  consented 
exchange.     Yet,  as  we  know,  it  is  precisely  in 
ancient  as  in  modem  times  the  most  absolute 
despot  who  is  often  the  most  financially  embar- 
rassed.^    Is  not  this    a    demonstration   that   in 

» Buckle  {History  of  Civilization)  points  out  that  Philip  II., 
who  ruled  half  the  world  and  drew  tribute  from  the  whole  of 
South  America,  was  so  poor  that  he  could  not  pay  his  personal 
servants  or  meet  the  daily  expenses  of  the  Court! 


272 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     273 


ife. 


1 


reality  physical  force  is  operative  in  only  very 
narrow  limits?     It  is  no  mere  rhetoric  but  the 
cold  truth  to  say  that  under  absolutism  it  is  a 
simple  thing  to  get  men's  lives,  but  often  impos- 
sible to  get  money.     And  the  more,  apparently, 
that  physical  force  was  exercised,  the  more  dif- 
ficult did  the  command  of  money  become.    And 
for  a  very  simple  reason — a  reason  which  reveals 
in  rudimentary  form  that  principle  of  the  economic 
futility  of  military  power  with  which  we  are  deal- 
ing.    The  phenomenon  is  best  illustrated  by  a 
concrete  case.     If  one  go  to-day  into  one  of  the 
independent  despotisms  of  Central  Asia  one  will 
find  generally  a  picture  of  the  most  abject  poverty. 
Why?    Because   the   ruler   has   absolute   power 
to  take  wealth  whenever  he  sees  it,  to  take  it  by 
any  means  whatever — torture,  death,  up  to  the 
completest  limit  of  uncontrolled  physical  force. 
What  is  the  result?   The  wealth  is  not  created  and 
torture  itself  cannot  produce  a  thing  which  is  non- 
existent.    Step  across  the  frontier  into  a  State 
tmder  British  or  Russian  protection,  and  where 
the  Khan  has  some  sort  of  limits  imposed  on  his 
powers.     The  difference  is  immediately  percep- 
tible: evidence  of  wealth  and  comfort  in  relative 
profusion,  and  other  things  being  equal,  the  ruler 
whose  physical  force  over  his  subjects  is  limited,  is 
a  great  deal  richer  than  the  ruler  whose  physical 
force  over  his  subjects  is  unlimited.     In  other 
words,  the  farther  one  gets  away  from  physical 


force  in  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  the  greater  is  the 
result  for  the  effort  expended.  At  the  one  end  of 
the  scale  you  get  the  despot  in  rags,  exercising 
sway  over  what  is  probably  a  potentially  rich 
territory,  reduced  to  having  to  kill  a  man  by  tor- 
ture in  order  to  obtain  a  sum  which,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  scale,  a  London  tradesman  will  spend  on 
a  restaurant  dinner  for  the  purpose  of  sitting  at 
table  with  a  duke — or  the  thousandth  part  of  the 
sum  which  the  same  tradesman  will  spend  in 
philanthrophy  or  otherwise,  for  the  sake  of  ac- 
quiring an  empty  title  from  a  monarch  who  has 
lost  all  power  of  exercising  any  physical  force 
whatsoever. 

Which  process,  judged  by  all  things  that  men 
desire,  gives  the  better  result,  the  physical  force 
of  blood  and  iron  which  we  see,  or  the  intellectual 
or  psychic  force  which  we  cannot  see?  But  the 
principle  which  operates  in  the  limited  fashion 
which  I  have  indicated,  operates  with  no  less  force 
in  the  larger  domain  of  modem  international 
politics.  The  wealth  of  the  world  is  not  repre- 
sented by  a  fixed  amoimt  of  gold  or  money  now 
in  the  possession  of  one  power,  and  now  in  the 
possession  of  another,  but  depends  on  all  the  un- 
checked multiple  activities  of  a  commimity  for 
the  time  being.  Check  that  activity,  whether 
by  imposing  tribute,  or  disadvantageous  com- 
mercial conditions,  or  an  unwelcome  administra- 
tion which  sets  up  sterile  political  agitation,  and 


I! 


ilf 


i 


274 


The  Great  Illusion 


11 


'1 

t 


i 


you  get  less  wealth — less  wealth  for  the  conqueror^ 
quite  as  much  as  for  the  conquered.  The  broadest 
statement  of  the  case  is  that  all  experience — 
especially  the  experience  indicated  in  the  last 
chapter — shows  that  in  trade  by  free  consent 
carrying  mutual  benefit,  we  get  larger  results 
for  effort  expended  than  in  the  exercise  of  physical 
force  which  attempts  to  exact  advantage  for  one 
party  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  I  am  not  argu- 
ing over  again  the  thesis  of  the  first  part  of  this 
book;  but,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  the  general 
principle  of  the  diminishing  factor  of  physical 
force  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  carries  with  it 
a  psychological  change  in  human  nature  which 
modifies  radically  our  impulses  to  sheer  physical 
conflict.  What  it  is  important  just  now  to  keep 
in  mind  is  the  incalculable  intensification  of  this 
diminution  of  physical  force  by  our  mechanical 
development.  The  principle  was  obviously  less 
true  for  Rome  than  it  is  for  Great  Britain: 
Rome,  however  imperfectly,  Hved  largely  by 
tribute.  The  sheer  mechanical  development  of 
the  modem  world  has  rendered  tribute  in  the 
Roman  sense  impossible.  Rome  did  not  have 
to  create  markets  and  find  a  field  for  the  employ- 
ment of  her  capital.  We  do.  Wliat  result  does 
this  carry?  Rome  could  afford  to  be  relatively 
indifferent  to  the  prosperity  of  her  subject  terri- 
tory. We  cannot.  If  the  territory  is  not  prosper- 
ous we  have  no  market,  and  we  have  no  field 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force      275 

for  our  investments,  and  that  is  why  we  are 
checked  at  every  point  from  doing  what  Rome  was 
able  to  do.  You  can  to  some  extent  exact  tribute 
by  force;  you  cannot  compel  a  man  to  buy  your 
goods  by  force  if  he  does  not  want  them,  and  has 
not  got  the  money  to  pay  for  them.  Now,  the 
difference  which  we  see  here  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  interaction  of  a  whole  series  of 
mechanical  changes — printing,  gunpowder,  steam, 
electricity,  improved  means  of  communication. 
It  is  the  last-named  which  has  mainly  created  the 
fact  of  credit — phenomena  such  as  a  synchronized 
bank-rate  the  world  over,  and  re-acting  bourses. 
Now,  credit '  is  merely  an  extension  of  the  use  of 
money,  and  we  can  no  more  shake  off  the  domina- 
tion of  the  one  than  of  the  other.  We  have  seen 
that  the  bloodiest  despot  is  himself  the  slave  of 
money,  in  the  sense  that  he  is  compelled  to  employ 
it.  In  the  same  way  no  physical  force  can  in  the 
modem  world  set  at  nought  the  force  of  credit. 
It  is  no  more  possible  for  a  great  people  of  the 
modem  world  to  live  without  credit  than  without 
money,  of  which  it  is  a  part.  Do  we  not  here  get 
the  same  fact  that  intangible  economic  forces  are 
setting  at  nought  the  force  of  arms? 

One  of  the  curiosities  of  this  mechanical  develop- 
ment, with  its  deep-seated  psychological  results, 
is  the  general  failure  to  realize  the  real  bearings 

*  I  mean  by  credit  all  the  mechanism  of  exchange  which  re- 
places the  actual  use  of  metal  or  notes. 


276 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  each  step  therein.  Printing  was  regarded, 
in  the  first  instance,  as  merely  a  new-fangled 
process  which  threw  a  great  many  copying 
scribes  and  monks  out  of  employment.  But  who 
realized  that  in  the  simple  invention  of  printing 
there  was  the  liberation  of  a  force  greater  than  the 
power  of  kings?  It  is  only  here  and  there  that  we 
find  an  isolated  thinker  having  a  glimmering  of 
the  political  bearing  of  such  inventions;  of  the 
conception  of  the  great  truth  that  the  more  man 
succeeds  with  his  struggle  with  nature,  the  less 
must  be  the  r61e  of  physical  force  between  men,  for 
the  reason  that  human  society  has  become  with 
each  success  in  the  struggle  against  nature  a 
completer  organism.  That  is  to  say,  that  the 
interdependence  of  the  parts  has  been  increased, 
and  that  the  possibility  of  one  part  injuring  an- 
other without  injiiry  to  itself  has  been  diminished. 
Each  part  is  more  dependent  on  the  other  parts, 
and  the  impulses  to  injury  therefore  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  diminished.  And  that  fact 
must,  and  is,  daily  redirecting  human  pugnacity. 
Our  struggle  is  with  our  environment,  not  with 
one  another;  and  those  who  talk  as  though  struggle 
between  the  parts  of  the  same  organism  must 
necessarily  go  on,  and  that  impulses  which  are 
redirected  every  day  can  never  receive  the  particu- 
lar redirection  involved  in  abandoning  the  struggle 
between  States,  ignorantly  adopt  the  formula  of 
science,  but  leave  half  the  facts  out  of  considera- 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     2^j 

tion     And  just  as  the  direction  of  the  impulses 
will  be  changed,  so  will  the  instruments  used  in  the 
struggle  be  changed;  the  force  which  we  shall  use 
for  our  needs  will  be  the  force  of  intelligence,  of 
hard  work,  of  character,  of  patience,  self-control, 
and  a  developed  brain,  and  the  pugnacity  and 
combativeness,  which,  instead  of  being  used  up 
and  wasted  in  worid  conflicts  of  futile  destructive- 
ness    wiU  be,  and  are  being,  diverted  into  the 
steady  stream  of  rationaUy-directed  effort.     The 
vinle  impulses  become,  not  the  tyrant  and  the 
master,  but  the  tool  and  servant  of  the  controlHne 
Dram.  ^ 

The  conception  of  abstract  imponderable  forces 
by  the  human  mind  is  a  very  slow  process.    All 
man  s  history  reveals  this.     The  theologian  has 
always    felt    this    difficulty.     For    thousands    of 
years  men  could  only  conceive  of  evil  as  an  animal 
with  horns  and  a  tail,  going  about  the  world 
devouring  folk;  abstract  conceptions  had  to  be 
made  understandable  by  a  crude  anthropomorph- 
ism.     Perhaps  it  is  better  that  humanity  should 
have  some  glimmering  of  the  great  facts  of  the 
umverse,  even  though  interpreted  by  legends  of 
demons  and  goblins,  and  fairies,  and  the  rest- 
but  we  cannot  overlook  the  truth  that  the  facts' 
are  distorted  in  the  process,  and  our  advance  in 
the  conception  of  morals  is  marked  largely  by  the 
extent  to  which  we  can  form  an  abstract  concep- 
tion  of  the  fax:t  of  evil-none  the  less  a  fact  be- 


^ 


ill? 


'>■  i 


i 


^ 


2^8 


The  Great  Illusion 


cause  unembodied — without  having  to  translate 
it  into  a  non-existent  person  or  animal  with  a 
forked  tail. 

As  our  advance  in  the  understanding  of  morality 
is  marked  by  our  dropping  these  crude  physical 
conceptions,  is  it  not  likely  that  our  advance 
in  the  understanding  of  those  problems,  which 
so  nearly  affect  our  general  well-being,  will  be 
marked  in  like  manner? 

Is  it  not  somewhat  childish  and  elementary  to 
conceive  of  force  only  as  the  firing  off  of  guns 
and  the  launching  of  Dreadnoughts  ?  of  struggle,  as 
the  physical  struggle  between  men,  instead  of  the 
application  of  man's  energies  to  his  contest  with 
the  planet?  Is  not  the  time  coming  when  the 
real  struggle  will  insj^ire  us  with  the  same  respect 
and  even  the  same  thrill  as  that  now  inspired 
by  a  charge  in  battle;  especially  as  the  charges 
in  battle  are  getting  very  out  of  date,  and  are 
shortly  to  disappear  from  our  warfare?  The 
mind  which  can  only  conceive  of  struggle  as 
bombardment  and  charges  is,  of  course,  the  Der- 
vish mind.  Not  that  Fuzzy  Wuzzy  is  not  a  fine 
fellow.  He  is  manly,  sturdy,  hardy,  with  a  cour- 
age and  warlike  qualities  generally  which  no 
European  can  equal.  But  the  frail  and  spec- 
tacled English  official  is  his  master,  and  a  few 
score  of  such  will  make  themselves  the  masters 
of  teeming  thousands  of  Sudanese ;  the  relatively 
unwarlike  Englishman  is  doing  the  same  thing 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     279 

all  over  Asia,  and  he  is  doing  it  by  the  simple 
virtue  of  superior  brain  and  character,  more 
thought,  more  rationalism,  more  steady  and 
controlled  hard  work.  It  may  be  said  that  it  is 
superior  armament  which  does  it.  But  what  is 
the  superior  armament  but  the  result  of  superior 
thought  and  work? — and  even  without  the  super- 
ior armament  the  larger  intelligence  would  still  do 
it ;  for  what  the  Englishman  does  the  Roman  did 
of  old,  with  the  same  arms  as  his  vassal  worlds. 
Force  is  indeed  the  master,  but  it  is  force  of  intelli- 
gence, character,  and  rationalism. 

I  can  imagine  the  contempt  with  which  the  man 
of  physical  force  greets  the  foregoing.  To  fight 
with  words,  to  fight  with  talk!  No,  not  words,  but 
ideas.  And  something  more  than  ideas.  Their 
translation  into  practical  effort,  into  organization, 
into  the  direction  and  administration  of  organiza- 
tion, into  the  strategy  and  tactics  of  himian  life. 

And  what,  indeed,  is  modem  warfare  in  its 
highest  phases  but  this?  Is  it  not  an  altogether 
out-of-date  and  ignorant  view  to  picture  soldier- 
ing as  riding  about  on  horseback,  bivouacking  in 
forests,  sleeping  in  tents,  and  dashing  gallantly 
at  the  head  of  shining  regiments  in  plumes  and 
breastplates,  and  pounding  in  serried  ranks 
against  the  equally  serried  ranks  of  the  cruel  foe, 
storming  breaches — "war,"  in  short,  of  Mr. 
Henty's  books  for  boys?  How  far  does  such 
conception   correspond   to   the   reality — to   the 


I 


280 


The  Great  Illusion 


German  conception?     Even  if  the  whole  picture 
were  not  out  of  date,  what  proportion  of  the  most 
military  nation  would  ever  be  destined  to  witness 
it  or  to  take  part  in  it  ?     Not  one  in  ten  thousand. 
What  is  the  character  even  of  military  conflict 
but  for  the  most  part  years  of  hard  and  steady 
work,  somewhat  mechanical,  somewhat  divorced 
from  real  life,   but   not   a  whit   more  exciting? 
That  is  true  of  aU  ranks ;  and  in  the  higher  ranks 
of  the  directing  mind  war  has  become  an  almost 
purely  intellectual  process.     Was  it  not  the  late 
W.  H.  Stevens  who  painted  Lord  Kitchener  as  the 
sort  of  man  who  would  have  made  an  admirable 
manager  of  Harrod's  Stores;  who  fought  all  his 
battles  in  his  study,   and  regarded  the  actual 
fighting  as  the  mere  culminating  incident  in  the 
whole  process,  the  dirty  and  noisy  part  of  it, 
which  he  would  have  been  glad  to  get  away  from? 
The  real  soldiers  of  our  time— those  who  repre- 
sent the  brain  of  the  armies— have  a  life  not  very 
different  from  that  of  men  of  any  intellectual  call- 
ing; much  less  of  physical  strife  than  is  called  for 
in  many  civil  occupations;  less  than  falls  to  the 
lot  of  engineers,  ranchers,  sailors,  miners,  and  so 
on.     Even  with  armies  the  pugnacity  must  be 
translated  into  intellectual  and  not  into  physical 
effort. ' 

'"Battles  are  no  longer  the  spectacular  heroics  of  the  past. 
The  army  of  to-day  and  to-morrow  is  a  sombre  gigantic  machine 
devoid  of  melodramatic  heroics  ...  a  machme  that  it  requires 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     281 

The  very  fact  that  war  was  for  long  an  activity 
which  was  in  some  sense  a  change  and  relaxation 
from  the  more  intellectual  strife  of  peaceful  life, 
in  which  work  was  replaced  by  danger,  thought 
by  adventure,  accounted  in  no  small  part  for  its 
attraction  for  us.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  war  is 
becoming  as  hopelessly  intellectual  and  scientific 
as  any  other  form  of  work :  officers  are  scientists, 
the  men  are  workmen,  the  army  is  a  machine, 
battles  are  "tactical  operations,'*  the  charge  is 
becoming  out  of  date;  a  little  while  and  war  will 
become  the  least  romantic  of  all  professions. 

In  this  domain,  as  in  all  others,  intellectual 
force  is  replacing  sheer  physical  force,  and  we 
are  being  pushed  by  the  necessities  even  of  this 
struggle  to  be  more  rational  in  our  attitude  to  war, 
to  rationalize  oiu-  study  of  it ;  and  as  our  attitude 
generally  becomes  more  scientific,  so  will  the  ptirely 
impulsive  element  lose  its  empire  over  us.  That 
is  one  factor;  but,  of  course,  there  is  the  greater 
one.  Our  respect  and  admiration  goes  in  the  long 
run,  despite  momentary  setbacks,  to  those  qualities 
which  achieve  the  results  at  which  we  are  all  in 
common  aiming.  If  those  quaUties  are  mainly 
intellectual,  it  is  the  intellectual  qualities  that 
will  receive  the  tribute  of  our  admiration.  We 
do  not  make  a  man  Prime  Minister  because  he 


years  to  form  in  separate  parts,  years  to  assemble  them  together, 
and  other  years  to  make  them  work  smoothly  and  irresistibly 
(General  Homer  Lea  in  The  Valour  oj  Ignorance^  p.  49). 


•t 


2S2 


The  Great  Illusion 


^  m 


holds  the  Hght-weight  boxing  championship,  and 
nobody  knows  or  cares  whether  Mr.  Balfour  or 
Mr.  Asquith  would  be  the  better  man  at  polo. 
But  in  a  condition  of  society  in  which  physical 
force  was  still  the  determining  factor  it  would 
matter  all  in  the  world,  and  even  when  other 
factors  had  obtained  considerable  weight,  as  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,  physical  combat  went  for 
a  great  deal:  the  knight  in  his  shining  armour 
established  his  prestige  by  his  prowess  in  arms, 
and  the  vestige  of  this  still  remains  in  those  coun- 
tries that  retain  the  duel.  To  some  small  extent 
— a  very  small  extent — a  man's  dexterity  with 
sword  and  pistol  will  affect  his  political  prestige 
in  Paris,  Rorpe,  Buda-Pesth,  or  Berlin.  But  these 
are  just  interesting  vestiges,  and  in  the  case  of 
Anglo-Saxon  societies  have  disappeared  entirely. 
My  commercial  friend  who  declares  that  he  works 
fifteen  hours  a  day  mainly  for  the  purpose  of 
going  one  better  than  his  commercial  rival  across 
the  street,  must  beat  that  rival  in  commerce, 
not  in  arms ;  it  would  satisfy  no  pride  of  either  to 
"have  it  out"  in  the  back  garden  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves. Nor  is  there  the  least  danger  that  one 
will  stick  a  knife  into  the  other. 

Are  all  these  factors  to  leave  the  national  rela- 
tionship unaffected  ?  Have  they  left  it  unaffected  ? 
Does  the  military  prowess  of  Russia  or  of  Turkey 
inspire  any  particular  satisfaction  in  the  minds 
of  the  individual  Russian  or  of  the  individual 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     283 

Turk?  Does  it  inspire  Europe  with  any  especial 
respect?  Would  not  most  of  us  just  as  soon  be  a 
non-military  American  as  a  military  Turk?  Do 
not,  in  short,  all  the  factors  show  that  sheer  phy- 
sical force  is  losing  its  prestige  as  much  in  the 
national  as  in  the  personal  relationship? 

I  am  not  overlooking  the  case  of  Germany. 
Does  the  history  of  Germany  during  the  last  half- 
century    show   the   blind   instinctive   pugnacity 
which  is  supposed  to  be  so  overpowering  an  ele- 
ment in  international  relationship  as  to  outweigh 
all    question    of    material    interest    altogether? 
Does  the  commonly  accepted  history  of  the  trick- 
ery  and   negotiation  which   preceded   the    1870 
conflict,  the  cool  calculation  of  those  who  swayed 
Germany's  policy  dining  those  years,  show  that 
subordination  to  the  blind  lust  for  fight  which  the 
militarist  would  persuade  us  is  always  to  be  an 
element  in  our  international  conflicts?     Does  it 
not,  on  the  contrary,  show  that  German  destinies 
were  swayed  by  very  cool  and  calculating  motives 
of  interest,  though  interest  interpreted  in  terms 
of  political  and  economic  doctrines  which  the 
development  of  the  last  thirty  years  or  so  have 
demonstrated  to  be  obsolete?     Nor  am  I  over- 
looking the  "Prussian  tradition,"  the  fact  of  a 
firmly  entrenched,  aristocratic  status,  the  inter- 
lectual  legacy  of  pagan  knighthood  and  Heaven 
knows  what  else.     But  even  a  Prussian  Junker 
becomes  less  of  an  energumen  as  he  becomes  more 


^1 


K 


'Ifi: 


^< 


284 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  a  scientist,  and  although  German  science  has 
of  late  spent  its  energies  in  somewhat  arid  special- 
ism, the  influence  of  more  enlightened  conceptions 
m  sociology  and  statecraft  must  sooner  or  later 
emerge  from  any  thoroughgoing  study  of  political 
and  economical  problems.     Of  course,  there  are 
survivals  of  the  old  temper,  but  can  it  seriously 
be  argued  that  when  the  futility  of  physical  force 
to  accompHsh  those  ends  towards  which  we  are 
all  striving  is  fully  demonstrated  we  shall  go  on 
mamtaining  war  as  a  sort  of  theatrical  entertain- 
ment?   Has  such  a  thing  ever  happened  in  the 
past,  when  our  impulses  and  sporting  instincts 
came  mto  conflict  with  our  larger  social  and  econo- 
mic  interests? 

All  this,  in  other  words,  involves  a  great  deal 
more  than  the  mere  change  in  the  character  of 
warfare.  It  involves  a  fundamental  change  in 
our  psychological  attitude  thereto.  Not  only 
does  it  show  that  on  every  side,  even  the  miHtary 
side,  conflict  must  become  less  impulsive  and 
mstmctive,  more  rational  and  sustained,  less  the 
blind  strife  of  mutually  hating  men  and  more  and 
more  the  calculated  effort  to  a  definite  end;  but 
It  will  affect  the  very  well-springs  of  much  of  the 
present  defence  of  war. 

Why  is  it  that  the  authorities  I  have  quoted  in 
the  first  chapter  of  this  section— Mr.  Roosevelt, 
Von  Moltke,  Renan,  and  the  English  clergymen- 
sing  the  praises  of  war  as  such  a  valuable  school 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     285 

of  morals?  Do  these  war  advocates  urge  that 
war  of  itself  is  desirable?  Would  they  urge  going 
to  war  unnecessarily  or  unjustly  merely  because 
it  is  good  for  us?  Emphatically  no.  Their 
argument  in  the  last  analysis  resolves  itself  into 
this:  that  war,  though  bad,  has  redeeming  quali- 
ties, as  teaching  staunchness,  courage,  and  the 
rest.  Well,  so  has  cutting  oiu*  legs  off,  or  an 
operation  for  appendicitis.  But  who  ever  com- 
posed epics  on  typhoid  fever  or  cancer?  Such 
advocates  might  object  to  the  efficient  policing  of 
a  town  because,  while  it  is  full  of  cut-throats,  the 
inhabitants  would  be  taught  courage.  One  can 
almost  imagine  this  sort  of  teacher  pouring  scorn 
upon  those  weaklings  who  want  to  call  upon  the 
police  for  protection,  and  saying,  "Police  are 
for  sentimentalists  and  cowards  and  men  of 
slothful  ease.  What  will  become  of  the  strenuous 
life  if  you  introduce  police  ?  "  ' 

■  The  following  letter  to  the  Manchester  Guardian  is  worth 
reproduction  in  this  connection: 

"Sir, — I  see  that  'The  Church's  Duty  in  regard  to  War*  is  to  be 
discussed  at  the  Church  Congress.  This  is  right.  For  a  year  the 
heads  of  our  Church  have  been  telling  us  what  war  is  and  does — 
that  it  is  a  school  of  character;  that  it  sobers  men,  cleans  them, 
strengthens  them,  knits  their  hearts;  makes  them  brave,  patient, 
humble,  tender,  prone  to  self-sacrifice.  Watered  by  'war's  red 
rain,'  one  Bishop  tells  us,  virtue  grows;  a  cannonade,  he  points 
out,  is  an  'oratorio* — almost  a  form  of  worship.  True ;  and  to 
the  Chiu"ch  men  look  for  help  to  save  their  souls  from  starving 
for  lack  of  this  good  school,  this  kindly  rain,  this  sacred  music. 
Congresses  are  apt  to  lose  themselves  in  wastes  of  words.    This 


F 


286 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  whole  thing  falls  to  the  ground ;  and  if  we 
do  not  compose  poems  about  typhoid  it  is  because 
typhoid  has  no  attraction  for  us  and  war  has. 
That  is  the  bottom  of  the  whole  matter,  and  it 
simplifies  things  a  great  deal  to  admit  honestly 
that  while  no  one  is  thrilled  by  the  spectacle  of 
disease,  most  of  us  are  thrilled  by  the  spectacle  of 
war— that  while  none  of  us  are  fascinated  by  the 
spectacle  of  a  man  struggling  with  a  disease,  most 


one  must  not,  stirely  cannot,  so  straight  is  the  way  to  the  goal. 
It  has  simply  to  draft  and  submit  a  new  Collect  for  war  in  our 
time,  and  to  call  for  the  reverent  but  firm  emendation,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  best  modem  thought,  of  those  passages  in  Bible  and 
Prayer-Book  by  which  even  the  truest  of  Christians  and  the  best 
of  men  have  at  times  been  blinded  to  the  duty  of  seeking  war 
and  ensuing  it.  Still,  man's  moral  nature  cannot,  I  admit,  live  by 
war  alone;  nor  do  I  say  with  some  that  peace  is  wholly  bad. 
Even  amid  the  horrors  of  peace  you  will  find  little  shoots  of 
character  fed  by  the  gentle  and  timely  rains  of  plague  and  famine, 
tempest  and  fire;  simple  lessons  of  patience  and  courage  conned 
in  the  schools  of  typhus,  gout,  and  stone;  not  oratorios,  perhaps, 
but  homely  anthems  and  rude  hymns  played  on  knife  and  gun  in 
the  long  winter  nights.  Far  from  me  to  'sin  our  mercies,'  or  to 
call  mere  twilight  dark.  Yet  dark  it  may  become;  for  remember 
that  even  these  poor  makeshift  schools  of  character,  these  second- 
bests,  these  halting  substitutes  for  war— remember  that  the 
efficiency  of  every  one  of  them,  be  it  hunger,  accident,  ignorance, 
sickness,  or  pain,  is  menaced  by  the  intolerable  strain  of  its 
struggles  with  secular  doctors,  plumbers,  inventors,  schoolmasters, 
and  policemen.  Every  year  thousands  who  would  once  have  been 
braced  and  steeled  by  manly  tussles  with  smallpox  or  diphtheria 
are  robbed  of  that  blessing  by  the  great  changes  made  in  our 
drains.  Every  year  thousands  of  women  and  children  must  go 
their  way  bereft  of  the  rich  spiritual  experience  of  the  widow  and 
the  orphan." 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     287 

of  us  are  fascinated  by  the  spectacle  of  men 
struggling  with  one  another  in  war.  There  is 
something  in  warfare,  in  its  story,  and  in  its  para- 
phernalia, which  profoimdly  stirs  the  emotions  and 
sends  the  blood  tingling  through  the  veins  of  the 
most  peaceable  of  us,  and  appeals  to  I  know  not 
what  remote  instincts,  to  say  nothing  of  our 
natural  admiration  for  courage,  our  love  of  adven- 
ture, of  intense  movement  and  action.  But  this 
romantic  fascination  resides  to  no  small  extent 
in  that  very  spectacular  quality  of  which  modem 
conditions  are  depriving  war. 

As  we  become  a  little  more  educated  we  realize 
that  human  psychology  is  a  complex  and  not  a 
simple  thing;  that  because  we  yield  ourselves  to 
the  thrill  of  the  battle  spectacle  we  are  not  bound 
to  conclude  that  the  processes  behind  it  and  the 
nature  behind  it  are  necessarily  all  admirable; 
that  the  readiness  to  die  is  not  the  only  test  of 
virility  or  a  fine  or  noble  nature. 

In  the  book  to  which  I  have  just  referred  (Mr. 
Steevens*  With  Kitchener  to  Khartoum)  I  read 
the  following: 

And  the  Dervishes?  The  honour  of  the  fight  must 
still  go  with  the  men  who  died.  Our  men  were 
perfect,  but  the  Dervishes  were  superb — beyond 
perfection.  It  was  their  largest,  best,  and  bravest 
army  that  ever  fought  against  us  for  Mahdism,  and  it 
died  worthily  of  the  huge  empire  that  Mahdism  won 
and  kept  so  long.     Their  riflemen,  mangled  by  every 


^       I. 


j 

|!if 

V 

1 

1 

1 

288 


The  Great  Illusion 


kind  of  death  and  torment  that  man  can  devise,  clung 
round  the  black  flag  and  the  green,  emptying  their 
poor  rotten  home-made  cartridges  dauntlessly.  Their 
spearmen  charged   death   every   minute  hopelessly. 
Their  horsemen  led  each  attack,  riding  into  the  bullets 
till  nothing  was  left.  ...  Not  one  rush,  or  two,  or 
ten,  but  rush  on  rush,  company  on  company  never 
stopping,  though    all  their  view    that  was  not  un- 
shaken enemy,  was  the  bodies  of  the  men  who  had 
rushed  before  them.     A  dusky  line  got  up  and  stormed 
forward :  it  bent,  broke  up,  fell  apart,  and  disappeared. 
Before  the  smoke  had  cleared  another  line  was  bending 
and  storming  forward  in  the  same  track.  .  .  .  From 
the  green  army  there  now  came  only  death-enamoured 
desperadoes,  strolling  one  by  one  towards  the  rifles, 
pausing  to  shake  a  spear,  turning  aside  to  recognize 
a  corpse,  then,  caught  by  a  sudden  jet  of  fury,  bound- 
ing forward,  checking,  sinking  limply  to  the  ground. 
Now  under  the  black  flag  in  a  ring  of  bodies  stood 
only  three  men,   facing   the  three  thousand  of  the 
Third  Brigade.    They  folded  their  arms  about  the 
staff  and  gazed  steadily  forward.     Two  fell.     The 
last  Dervish  stood  up  and  filled  his  chest ;  he  shouted 
the  name  of  his  God  and  hurled  his  spear.     Then 
he  stood  quite  still,  waiting.     It  took  him  full;  he 
quivered,  gave  at  the  knees,  and  toppled  with  his  head 
on  his  arms  and  his  face  towards  the  legions  of  his 
conquerors. 

Let  us  be  honest.  Is  there  anything  in  Euro- 
pean history— -Cambronne,  the  Light  Brigade, 
anything  you  like— more  magnificent  than  this.? 
If  we  are  honest  we  shall  say  no. 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force      289 

But  note  what  follows  in  Mr.  Steevens'  nana- 
tive.  What  sort  of  nature  should  we  expect  those 
savage  heroes  to  display?  Cruel,  perhaps;  but  at 
least  loyal.  They  will  stand  by  their  chief.  Men 
who  can  die  like  that  will  not  betray  him  for  gain. 
They  are  uncomipted  by  commercialism.  Well, 
a  few  chapters  after  the  scene  just  described,  one 
may  read  this: 

As  a  ruler  the  Khalifa  finished  when  he  rode  out  of 
Omdurman.  His  own  pampered  Baggara  horsemen 
killed  his  men  and  looted  the  cattle  that  were  to  feed 
them.  Somebody  betrayed  the  position  of  the  re- 
serve camels.  .  .  .  His  followers  took  to  killing  one 
another.  .  .  .  The  whole  population  of  the  Khalifa's 
capital  was  now  racing  to  pilfer  the  Khalifa's  grain. 
.  .  .  Wonderful  workings  of  the  savage  mind!  Six 
hours  before  they  were  dying  in  regiments  for  their 
master;  now  they  were  looting  his  com.  Six  hours 
before  they  were  slashing  our  wounded  to  pieces;  now 
they  were  asking  us  for  coppers. 

This  difficulty  with  the  soldier's  psychology  is 
not  special  to  Dervishes  or  to  savages.  An  able 
and  cultivated  British  officer  writes: 

Soldiers  as  a  class  are  men  who  have  disregarded  the 
civil  standard  of  morality  altogether.  They  simply 
ignore  it.  It  is  no  doubt  why  civilians  fight  shy  of 
them.  In  the  game  of  life  they  do  not  play  the  same 
rules,  and  the  consequence  is  a  good  deal  of  mis- 
understanding, until  finally  the  civilian  says  he  will  not 


2  go 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


'V',!p 


play  with  Tommy  any  more.  In  soldiers'  eyes  lying, 
theft,  drunkenness,  bad  language,  etc.,  are  not  evils  at 
all.  They  steal  like  jackdaws.  As  to  language,  I 
used  to  think  the  language  of  a  merchant  ship's  fore- 
castle pretty  bad,  but  the  language  of  Tommies,  in 
point  of  profanity  and  in  point  of  obscenity,  beats  it 
hollow.  This  department  is  a  speciality  of  his.  Ly- 
ing he  treats  with  the  same  large  charity.  To  lie  like 
a  trooper  is  quite  a  sound  metaphor.  He  invents  all 
sorts  of  elaborate  lies  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  invent- 
ing them.  Looting,  again,  is  one  of  his  preferred  joys, 
not  merely  looting  for  profit,  but  looting  for  the  sheer 
fun  of  the  destruction.' 

(Please,  please,  dear  reader,  do  not  say  that  I  am 
slandering  the  British  soldier.  I  am  quoting  a 
British  officer,  and  a  British  officer,  moreover,  who 
is  keenly  in  sympathy  with  the  person  that  he  has 
just  been  describing.)     He  adds: 

Are  thieving,  and  lying,  and  looting,  and  bestial 
talk  very  bad  things?  If  they  are,  Tommy  is  a  bad 
man.  But  for  some  reason  or  other,  since  I  got  to 
know  him  I  have  thought  rather  less  of  the  iniquity 
of  these  things  than  I  did  before. 

I  do  not  know  which  of  the  two  passages  that  I 
have  quoted  is  the  more  striking  commentary  on 
the  moral  influence  of  military  training :  that  such 
training  should  have  the  effect  which  Captain 
March  Phillips  describes,   or  the  fact  that  the 

<  Captain  March  Phillips,  With  Remington* 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force      291 

second  judgment  should  be  given  by  a  man  of 
sterling  character  and  culture — the  judgment, 
that  is,  that  thieving,  and  lying,  and  looting,  and 
bestial  talk  do  not  matter.  Which  fact  constitutes 
the  severer  condemnation  of  the  ethical  atmosphere 
of  militarism  and  military  training?  Which  is 
the  more  convincing  testimony  to  the  corrupting 
influences  of  war?    I  leave  it  to  the  reader. 

To  do  the  soldiers  justice,  they  very  rarely  raise 
this  plea  of  war  being  a  moral  training  school. 
**War  itself, "said  on  one  occasion  an  officer, 
"is  an  infernally  dirty  business.  But  somebody 
has  got  to  do  the  dirty  work  of  the  world,  and  I 
am  glad  to  think  that  it  is  the  business  of  the 
soldier  to  prevent  rather  than  to  make  war.'* 

Not  that  I  am  concerned  to  deny  that  we  owe  a 
great  deal  to  the  soldier.  I  do  not  know  even  why 
we  should  deny  that  we  owe  a  great  deal  to  the 
Viking.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  were  in 
every  aspect  despicable.  Both  have  bequeathed 
a  heritage  of  courage,  sturdiness,  hardihood,  and 
a  spirit  of  ordered  adventure;  the  capacity  to  take 
hard  knocks  and  to  give  them;  comradeship  and 
rough  discipline — all  this  and  much  more.  It 
is  not  true  to  say  of  any  emotion  that  it  is  wholly 
and  absolutely  good,  or  wholly  and  absolutely 
bad.  The  same  psychological  force  which  made 
the  Vikings  destructive  and  cruel  pillagers  made 
their  descendants  sturdy  and  resolute  pioneers 
and    colonists;    and    the    same   emotional    force 


t  ir 


!.'l 


d 


2g2 


The  Great  Illusion 


which  turns  so  much  of  Africa  into  a  sordid  and 
bloody  shambles  would,  with  a  different  direction 
and  distribution,  turn  it  into  a  garden.  Is  it  for 
nothing  that  the  splendid  Scandinavian  race, 
who  have  converted  their  rugged  and  rock-strewn 
peninsula  into  a  group  of  prosperous  and  stable 
States,  which  are  an  example  to  Europe,  and  have 
infused  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  stock  with  some- 
thing of  their  sane  but  noble  ideahsm,  have  the 
blood  of  Vikings  in  their  veins?  Is  there  no  place 
for  the  free  play  of  all  the  best  qualities  of  the 
Viking  and  the  soldier  in  a  world  still  so  sadly 
in  need  of  men  with  courage  enough,  for  instance, 
to  face  the  truth,  however  difficult  it  may  seem, 
however  unkind  to  our  pet  prejudices? 

There  is  not  the  least  necessity  for  the  peace 
advocate  to  ignore  facts  in  this  matter.  The 
race  of  man  loves  a  soldier  just  as  boys  we  used  to 
love  the  pirate,  and  many  of  us,  perhaps  to  our 
very  great  advantage,  remain  in  part  boys  our 
lives  through.  But  just  as  growing  out  of  boy- 
hood we  regretfully  discover  the  sad  fact  that  we 
cannot  be  a  pirate,  that  we  cannot  even  hunt 
Indians,  nor  be  a  scout,  not  even  a  trapper,  so 
surely  the  time  has  come  to  realize  that  we  have 
grown  out  of  soldiering.  The  romantic  appeal 
of  war  was  just  as  true  of  the  ventures  of  the  old 
Vikings,  and  even  later  of  piracy.  *    Yet  we  super- 

« Professor  William  James  says:  "Greek  history  is  a  panorama 
of  war  for  war's  sake  and  .  .  of  the  utter  ruin  of  a  civilization 


The  Factor  of  Physical  Force     293 

seded  the  Viking  and  we  hanged  the  pirate,  though 
I  doubt  not  we  loved  him  while  we  hanged  him; 
and  I  am  not  aware  that  those  who  urged  the 
suppression  of  piracy  were  vilified,  except  by  the 
pirates,  as  maudlin  sentimentalists  who  ignored 
human  nature,  or,  as  Mr.  Lea's  phrase  has  it,  as 
''half -educated,  sick-brained  visionaries,  denying 
the  inexorability  of  the  primordial  law  of  struggle." 
Piracy  interfered  seriously  with  the  trade  and 
industry  of  those  who  desired  to  earn  for  them- 
selves as  good  a  living  as  they  could  get,  and  to 
obtain  from  this  imperfect  worid  all  that  it  had  to 
offer.     Piracy  was  magnificent,  doubtless,  but  it 
was  not  business.     We  are  prepared  to  sing  about 
the  Viking,  but  not  to  tolerate  him  on  the  high 
seas;  and  those  of  us  who  are  quite  prepared  to 
give  the  soldier  his  due  place  in  poetry  and  legend 
and  romance,  quite  prepared  to  admit,  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt  and  Von  Moltke  and  the  rest,  the  quaU- 
ties  which  perhaps  we  owe  to  him,  and  without 
which  we  should  be  poor  folk  indeed,  are  neverthe- 
less inquiring  whether  the  time  has  not  come  to 
place  him  (or  a  good  portion  of  him)  gently  on  the 
poetic  shelf  with  the  Viking;  or  at  least  to  find 
other  field  for  those  activities,  which,  however 
much  we  may  be  attracted  by  them,  have  in 


which  in  intellectual  respects  was  perhaps  the  highest  the  earth 
nas  ever  seen.     The  wars  were  purely  piratical.     Pride    gold 
women,  slaves,  excitement,  were  their  only  motives. "  McClure'l 
Magazine,  Aug.,  1910. 


294 


The  Great  Illusion 


;4 


their  present  form  little  place  in  a  world  in  which, 
though,  as  Bacon  has  said,  men  love  danger  better 
than  travail,  travail  is  bound,  alas! — despite  our- 
selves, and  whether  we  fight  Germany  or  not,  and 
whether  we  win  or  lose — to  be  our  lot. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  STATE  AS  A  PERSON :  A  FALSE  ANALOGY  AND  ITS 

CONSEQUENCES 

Why  aggression  upon  a  State  does  not  correspond  to  aggression 
upon  an  individual— Our  changing  conception  of  collective 
responsibility— Psychological  progress  in  this  connection— 
The  factors  breaking  down  the  homogeneous  personality  of 
States  are  of  very  recent  growth. 

DESPITE  the  common  idea  to  the  contrary, 
we  dearly  love  an  abstraction — especially, 
apparently,  an  abstraction  which  is  based  on  half 
the  facts.  Whatever  the  foregoing  chapters  may 
have  proved,  they  have  at  least  proved  this,  that 
the  character  of  the  modem  State,  by  virtue  of 
a  multitude  of  new  factors  which  are  special  to 
our  age,  differs  essentially  and  fundamentally 
from  the  ancient.  Yet  even  those  who  have 
great  and  justified  authority  in  this  matter  will 
still  appeal  to  Aristotle's  conception  of  the  State 
as  final,  with  the  implication  that  everything 
which  has  happened  since  Aristotle's  time  should 
be  calmly  disregarded. 

What  some  of  those  things  are  the  preceding 

295 


\!   I 


296 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


297 


"1 


chapters  have  indicated:  First,  there  is  the  fact  of 
the  change  in  human  nature  itself,  bound  up  with 
the  general  drift  away  from  the  use  of  physical 
force — a  drift  explained  by  the  unromantic  fact 
that  physical  force  does  not  give  so  much  response 
to  effort  expended  as  do  other  forms  of  energy. 
There  is  an  interconnection  of  psychological  and 
purely  mechanical  development  in  all  this  which 
it  is  not  necessary  to  disentangle  here.  The 
results  are  evident  enough.  Very  rarely,  and  to 
an  infinitesimal  extent,  do  we  now  employ  force 
for  the  achievement  of  our  ends.  But,  added  to 
all  these  factors,  there  is  still  a  further  one  bound 
up  with  them  which  remains  to  be  considered, 
and  which  has  perhaps  a  directer  bearing  on  the 
question  of  continued  conflict  between  nations  than 
any  one  of  them. 

Conflicts  between  nations  and  international 
pugnacity  generally  imply  a  conception  of  a  State 
as  a  homogeneous  whole,  having  the  same  sort 
of  responsibility  that  we  attach  to  a  person  who, 
hitting  us,  provokes  us  to  hit  back.  Now  only 
to  a  very  small  and  rapidly  diminishing  extent 
can  a  State  be  regarded  as  such  a  person.  There 
may  have  been  a  time — Aristotle's  time — ^when 
this  was  the  case.  Yet  the  fine-spun  theories 
on  which  are  based  the  necessity  for  the  use 
of  force  as  between  nations,  and  the  propositions 
that  the  relationship  of  nations  can  only  be  de- 
termined by  force  and  that  international  pugnacity 


will  always  be  expressed  by  a  physical  struggle 
between  nations,  all  arise  from  this  fatal  analogy, 
which  in  truth  corresponds  to  very  few  of  the  facts. 

Thus  Professor  Spenser  Wilkinson,  whose  con- 
tributions to  this  subject  have  such  a  deserved 
weight,  infers  that  what  will  permanently  render 
the  abandonment  of  force  as  between  nations 
impossible  is  the  principle  that  "the  employment 
of  force  for  the  maintenance  of  right  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  civilized  human  life,  for  it  is  the  fun- 
damental fimction  of  the  State,  and  apart  from 
the  State  there  is  no  civilization,  no  life  worth 
living.  .  .  .  The  mark  of  the  State  is  sovereignty, 
or  the  identification  of  force  and  right,  and  the 
measure  of  the  perfection  of  the  State  is  furnished 
by  the  completeness  of  this  identification. " 

All  of  which,  whether  true  or  not,  is  irrelevant 
to  the  matter  in  hand.  Professor  Spenser  Wilkin- 
son attempts  to  illustrate  his  thesis  by  quoting  a 
case  which  would  seem  to  imply  that  those  who 
take  their  stand  against  the  necessity  of  armaments 
do  so  on  the  ground  that  the  employment  of  force 
is  wicked.  There  may  be  such,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  introduce  the  question  of  right.  If  means 
other  than  force  gave  the  same  result  more  easily, 
with  less  effort  to  ourselves,  why  discuss  the  ab- 
stract right?  And  when  he  reinforces  the  appeal 
to  this  irrelevant  abstract  principle  by  a  case 
which,  while  apparently  relevant,  is  in  truth 
irrelevant,  he  has  successfully  confused  the  whole 


298 


The  Great  Illusion 


issue.     After  quoting  three  verses  from  Matt,  v., 
Professor  Spenser  Wilkinson  says*: 

There  are  those  who  believe,  or  fancy  they  believe, 
that  the  words  I  have  quoted  involve  the  principle 
that  the  use  of  force  or  violence  between  man  and 
man  or  between  nation  and  nation  is  wicked.  To  the 
man  who  thinks  it  right  to  submit  to  any  violence  or 
be  killed  rather  than  use  violence  in  resistance  I  have 
no  reply  to  make;  the  world  cannot  conquer  him,  and 
fear  has  no  hold  upon  him.  But  even  he  can  carry 
out  his  doctrine  only  to  the  extent  of  allowing  him- 
self to  be  ill-treated,  as  I  will  now  convince  him. 
Many  years  ago  the  people  of  Lancashire  were  horri- 
fied by  the  facts  reported  in  a  trial  for  murder.  In 
a  village  on  the  outskirts  of  Bolton  lived  a  young 
woman,  much  liked  and  respected  as  a  teacher  in  one 
of  the  Board-schools.  On  her  way  home  from  school 
she  was  accustomed  to  follow  a  footpath  through  a 
lonely  wood,  and  here  one  evening  her  body  was 
found.  She  had  been  strangled  by  a  ruffian  who  had 
thought  in  this  lonely  place  to  have  his  wicked  will 
of  her.  She  had  resisted  successfully,  and  he  had 
killed  her  in  the  struggle.  Fortunately  the  murderer 
was  caught,  and  the  facts  ascertained  from  circum- 
stantial evidence  were  confirmed  by  his  confession. 
Now  the  question  I  have  to  ask  the  man  who  takes 
his  stand  on  the  passage  quoted  from  the  Gospel  is 
this:  "What  would  have  been  your  duty  had  you  been 
walking  through  that  wood  and  come  upon  the  girl 
struggling  with  the  man  who  killed  her?    This  is 

"  Britain  at  Bay, 


The  State  as  a  Person 


299 


the  crucial  factor  which,  I  submit,  utterly  destroys 
the  doctrine  that  the  use  of  violence  is  in  itself  wrong. 
The  right  or  wrong  is  not  in  the  employment  of  force, 
but  simply  in  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  used.  What 
the  case  establishes,  I  think,  is  that  to  use  violence 
in  resistance  to  violent  wrong  is  not  only  right,  but 
necessary. 

The  above  presents  very  cleverly  the  utterly 
false  analogy  with  which  we  are  dealing.  Pro- 
fessor Spenser  Wilkinson's  cleverness,  indeed,  is 
a  little  Machiavellian,  because  he  approximates 
non-resisters  of  a  very  extreme  type  to  those  who 
advocate  agreement  among  nations  in  the  mat- 
ter of  armaments — a  false  approximation,  for  the 
proportion  of  those  who  advocate  reduction  of 
armaments  on  such  grounds  is  so  small  that  they 
can  be  disregarded  in  this  discussion.  A  move- 
ment which  is  identified  with  some  of  the  acutest 
minds  in  European  affairs  cannot  be  disposed  of 
by  associating  it  with  such  a  theory.  But  the 
basis  of  the  fallacy  is  in  the  approximation  of  a 
State  to  a  person.  Now  a  State  is  not  a  person, 
and  is  becoming  less  such  every  day,  and  the 
difficulty  which  Professor  Spenser  Wilkinson  in- 
dicates is  a  doctrinaire  difficulty,  not  a  real  one. 
Professor  Wilkinson  would  have  us  infer  that  a 
State  can  be  injured  or  killed  in  the  same  simple 
way  in  which  it  is  possible  to  kill  or  injure  a  person, 
and  that  because  there  must  be  physical  force  to 
restrain  aggression  upon  persons,  there  must  be 


If 


4       Ml  J 


300 


The  Great  Illusion 


physical  force  to  restrain  aggression  upon  States; 
and  because  there  must  be  physical  force  to  exe- 
cute the  judgment  of  a  court  of  law  in  the  case 
of  individuals,  there  must  be  physical  force  to 
execute  the  judgment  rendered  by  a  decision  as  to 
differences  between  States.  All  of  which  is  false, 
and  arrived  at  by  approximating  a  person  to  a 
State,  and  disregarding  the  niunberless  facts 
which  render  a  person  different  from  a  State. 

How  do  we  know  that  these  difficulties  are 
doctrinaire  ones?  It  is  the  British  Empire 
which  supplies  the  answer.  The  British  Empire 
is  made  up  in  large  part  of  a  congeries  of  practically 
independent  States,  over  whose  acts  not  only  does 
Great  Britain  exercise  no  control,  but  concerning 
whom  Great  Britain  has  siurendered  in  advance 
any  intention  of  employing  force.*  The  British 
States  have  disagreements  among  themselves. 
They  may  or  may  not  refer  their  differences  to 
the  British  Government,  but  if  they  do,  is  Great 
Britain  going  to  send  an  army  to  Canada,  say, 
to  enforce  her  judgment?  Everyone  knows  that 
that  is  impossible.  Even  when  one  State  commits 
what  is  in  reality  a  serious  breach  of  international 
comity  on  another,  not  only  does  (}reat  Britain  do 
nothing  herself,  but  so  far  as  she  interferes  at  all, 
it  is  to  prevent  the  employment  of  physical  force. 
For  years  now  British  Indians  have  been  sub- 
jected to  most  cruel  and  imjust  treatment  in 

'  See  quotation  from  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas,  pp.  1 12-17. 


The  State  as  a  Person 


301 


the  State  of  Natal.'  The  British  Government 
makes  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  she  regards  this 
treatment  as  imjust  and  cruel;  were  Natal  a 
foreign  State,  it  is  conceivable  that  she  would 
employ  force,  but,  following  the  principle  laid 
down  by  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas,  "whether  they  are  right 
or  whether  they  are  wrong,  more  perhaps  when 
they  are  wrong  than  when  they  are  right,  they 
cannot  be  made  amenable  by  force,  **  the  two  States 
are  left  to  adjust  the  difficulty  as  best  they  may 
without  resort  to  force.  In  the  last  resort  the 
British  Empire  reposes  upon  the  expectation  that 
its  colonies  will  behave  as  civiHzed  commimities, 
and  in  the  long-run  the  expectation  is,  of  cotu*se, 
a  well-foimded  one,  because  if  they  do  not  so 
behave,  retribution  will  come  more  surely  by  the 
ordinary  operation  of  social  and  economic  forces 
than  it  could  come  by  any  force  of  arms. 

The  case  of  the  British  Empire  is  not  an  isolated 
one.  The  fact  is  that  most  of  the  States  of  the 
World  maintain  their  relations  one  with  another 
without  any  possibiHty  of  a  resort  to  force;  half 
the  States  of  the  world  have  no  means  of  enforcing 
by  arms  such  wrongs  as  they  may  suffer  at  the 
hands  of  other  States.  Thousands  of  English- 
men, for  instance,  make  their  homes  in  Switzer- 
land, and  it  has  happened  that  wrongs  have  been 
suffered  by  Englishmen  at  the  hands  of  the  Swiss 
Government.     Would,  however,  the  relations  be- 

*  See  details  on  this  matter  given  in  Chapter  VII,  Part  I. 


302 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


303 


tween  the  two  States,  or  the  practical  standard  of 
protection  of  British  subjects  in  Switzerland,  be 
any  the  better  were  Switzerland  the  whole  time 
threatened  by  the  might  of  Great  Britain? 
Switzerland  knows  herself  practically  free  from 
the  possibility  of  the  exercise  of  armed  force, 
but  that  has  not  prevented  her  behaving  as  a 
civilized  community  towards  British  subjects. 

What  is  the  real  guarantee  of  the  good  be- 
haviour of  one  State  to  another?  It  is  the  ela- 
borate interdependence,  which,  not  only  in  the 
economic  sense,  but  in  every  sense,  makes  an  un- 
warrantable aggression  of  one  State  upon  another 
react  upon  the  interests  of  the  aggressor.  Switzer- 
land has  every  interest  in  affording  an  absolutely 
secure  asylum  to  British  subjects ;  that  fact,  and  not 
the  might  of  the  British  Empire,  gives  protection  to 
British  subjects  in  Switzerland.  Where,  indeed, 
the  British  subject  has  to  depend  upon  the  force 
of  his  Government  for  protection  it  is  a  very  frail 
protection  indeed,  because  in  practice  the  use  of 
that  force  is  so  cumbersome,  so  difficult,  so  costly, 
that  any  other  means  are  to  be  preferred  to  it. 
When  the  traveller  in  Greece  had  to  depend  upon 
British  arms,  great  as  were  relatively  the  force 
of  those  arms,  it  proved  but  a  very  frail  protec- 
tion. In  the  same  way,  when  physical  force  was 
used  to  impose  on  the  South  American  and  Cen- 
tral American  States  the  observance  of  their 
financial    obligations,    such    an    attempt    failed 


utterly  and  miserably — so  miserably  that  Great 
Britain  finally  surrendered  any  attempt  at  such 
enforcement.  What  means  have  succeeded  ?  The 
bringing  of  those  countries  under  the  influence  of 
the  great  economic  currents  of  our  time,  so  that 
now  property  is  infinitely  more  secure  in  Mexico 
and  in  Argentina  than  it  was  when  British  gun- 
boats were  bombarding  their  ports.  More  and 
more  in  international  relationship  is  the  purely 
economic  motive — and  the  economic  motive  is 
only  one  of  several  possible  ones — being  employed 
to  replace  the  use  of  physical  force.  Austria  the 
other  day  was  untouched  by  any  threat  of  the 
employment  of  the  Turkish  army  when  the  an- 
nexation of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  was  con- 
summated, but  when  the  Turkish  population 
enforced  a  very  successful  commercial  boycott  of 
Austrian  goods  and  Austrian  ships,  Austrian 
merchants  and  public  opinion  made  it  quickly 
plain  to  the  Austrian  Government  that  pressure  of 
this  nature  was  not  one  that  could  be  disregarded. 
I  anticipate  the  plea  that  while  the  elaborate 
interconnection  of  economic  forces  renders  the 
employment  of  force  as  between  nations  un- 
necessary in  so  far  as  their  material  interests  are 
concerned,  those  forces  cannot  cover  a  case  of 
aggression  upon  what  may  be  termed  the  moral 
property  of  nations.  A  critic  of  the  first  edition 
of  this  book'  writes: 

»  Morning  Post,  April  21,  1910.     I  pass  over  the  fact  that  to 


304 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  is  the  only  complete  form  in  which 
human  society  exists,  and  there  are  a  multitude  of 
phenomena  which  will  be  found  only  as  manifestations 
of  himian  life  in  the  form  of  a  society  united  by  the 
political  bond  into  a  State.  The  products  of  such 
society  are  law,  literature,  art,  and  science,  and  it 
has  yet  to  be  shown  that  apart  from  that  form  of 
society  known  as  the  State,  the  family  or  education  or 
development  of  character  is  possible.  The  State,  in 
short,  is  an  organism  or  living  thing  which  can  be 
wounded  and  can  be  killed,  and  like  every  other  living 
thing  requires  protection  against  wounding  and 
destruction.  .  .  .  Conscience  and  morals  are  pro- 
ducts of  social  and  not  of  individual  life,  and  to  say 
that  the  sole  purpose  of  the  State  is  to  make  possible 
a  decent  livelihood  is  as  though  a  man  should  say 
that  the  sole  object  of  human  life  is  to  satisfy  the 
interests  of  existence.  A  man  cannot  live  any  kind 
of  life  without  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  but  that 
condition  does  not  abolish  or  diminish  the  value  of 
the  life  industrial,  the  life  intellectual,  or  the  life 
artistic.  The  State  is  the  condition  of  all  these  lives, 
and  its  purpose  is  to  sustain  them.  That  is  why  the 
State  must  defend  itself.  In  the  ideal  the  State  repre- 
sents and  embodies  the  whole  people's  conception 
of  what  is  true,  of  what  is  beautiful,  and  of  what  is 
right,  and  it  is  the  sublime  quality  of  human  nature 

cite  all  this  as  a  reason  for  armaments  is  absurd.  Does  the 
Morning  Post  really  suggest  that  the  Germans  are  going  to  attack 
England  because  they  don't  like  the  English  taste  in  art,  or  music, 
or  cooking?  The  notion  that  preferences  of  this  sort  need  the 
protection  of  "  Dreadnoughts  "  is  surely  to  bring  the  whole  thing 
within  the  domain  of  the  grotesque. 


The  State  as  a  Person 


305 


that  every  great  nation  has  produced  citizens  ready 
to  sacrifice  themselves  rather  than  submit  to  an 
external  force  attempting  to  dictate  to  them  a  con- 
ception other  than  their  own  of  what  is  right. 

One  is,  of  course,  surprised  to  see  the  fore- 
going in  the  Morning  Post;  the  concluding  phrase 
would  justify  the  present  agitation  in  India  or 
in  Egypt  or  Ireland  against  British  rule.  What 
is  that  agitation  but  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
peoples  of  those  States  to  resist  "an  external  force 
attempting  to  dictate  to  them  a  conception  other 
than  their  own  of  what  is  right"?  Fortunately, 
however,  for  British  Imperialism  a  people's  con- 
ception of  *'what  is  true,  of  what  is  beautiful, 
and  of  what  is  right,"  and  their  maintenance 
of  that  conception  need  not  necessarily  have  any- 
thing whatever  to  do  with  the  particular  adminis- 
trative conditions  under  which  they  may  live — 
the  only  thing  that  a  conception  of  *' State" 
predicates.  The  fallacy  which  runs  through  the 
whole  passage  just  quoted,  and  which  makes  it, 
in  fact,  nonsense,  is  the  same  fallacy  which 
dominates  the  quotation  that  I  have  made  from 
Professor  Spenser  Wilkinson's  book,  Britain 
at  Bay — namely,  the  approximation  of  a  State 
to  a  person,  the  conception  of  a  State  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  "  the  whole  people's  conception  of 
what  is  true,  etc. "  A  State  is  nothing  of  the  sort. 
Take  the  British  Empire.     This  State  embodies 


\  hi 


306 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


3<^7 


^ 


not  a  homogeneous  conception,  but  a  series  of 
often  absolutely  contradictory  conceptions  of 
"what  is  true,  etc.";  it  embodies  the  Mohamme- 
dan, the  Buddhist,  the  Copt,  the  Catholic,  the 
Protestant,  the  Pagan  conceptions  of  right  and 
truth.  The  fact  which  vitiates  the  whole  of  this 
conception  of  a  State  is  that  the  frontiers  which 
define  the  State  do  not  coincide  with  the  conception 
of  any  of  those  things  which  the  Morning  Post 
critic  has  enumerated;  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
British  morality  as  opposed  to  French  or  German 
morality,  or  art,  or  industry.  One  may,  indeed, 
talk  of  an  English  conception  of  life,  because  that 
is  a  conception  of  life  pecuHar  to  England,  but 
it  would  be  opposed  to  the  conception  of  life  in 
other  parts  of  the  same  State  in  Ireland,  in  Scot- 
land, in  India,  in  Egypt,  in  Jamaica.  And  what 
is  true  of  England  is  true  of  all  the  great  modern 
States.  Every  one  of  them  includes  conceptions 
absolutely  opposed  to  other  conceptions  in  the 
same  State,  but  many  of  them  absolutely  agreeing 
with  conceptions  in  foreign  States.  The  British 
State  includes  in  Ireland  a  CathoHc  conception 
in  cordial  agreement  with  the  Catholic  conception 
in  Italy,  but  in  cordial  disagreement  with  the 
Protestant  conception  in  Scotland,  or  the  Moham- 
medan conception  in  Bengal.  The  real  and  only 
divisions  of  all  those  ideals  which  the  critic 
enumerates  cut  right  across  State  divisions,  dis- 
regard them  entirely.    And  yet  again  it  is  only  the 


State  divisions  which  military  conflict  has  in  view. 

What  was  one  of  the  reasons  leading  to  the 
cessation  of  religious  wars  between  States?  It 
was  that  religious  conceptions  cut  across  the  State 
frontiers,  so  that  the  State  ceased  to  coincide 
with  the  religious  divisions  of  Europe,  and  a  condi- 
tion of  things  was  brought  about  in  which  a 
Protestant  Sweden  was  allied  with  a  Catholic 
France.  This  rendered  the  conflict  absiu"d,  and 
religious  war  became  an  anachronism. 

But  is  not  precisely  the  same  thing  taking  place 
with  reference  to  the  conflicting  conceptions  of 
life  which  now  separate  men  in  Europe?  Have 
we  not  in  Great  Britain  now  the  same  doctrinal 
struggle  which  is  going  on  in  France  and  Germany 
and  in  America?  To  take  one  instance — social 
conflict.  On  the  one  side  in  each  case  are  all  the 
interests  bound  up  with  order,  authority,  in- 
dividual freedom  without  reference  to  the  comfort 
of  the  weak,  and  on  the  other  the  reconstruction 
of  human  society  along  hitherto  untried  lines. 
These  problems  are  for  most  men  probably — are 
certainly  coming  to  be,  if  they  are  not  now — much 
more  profoimd  and  fundamental  than  any  concep- 
tion which  coincides  with  or  can  be  identified  with 
State  divisions.  Indeed,  what  are  the  conceptions 
the  divisions  in  which  coincide  with  the  poHtical 
frontiers  of  the  British  Empire,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  that  Empire  includes  nearly  every  race  and 
nearly  every  rehgion  under  the  sim  ?  1 1  may  be  said. 


I 

i. 

,1 


i 


SHE 


308 


The  Great  Illusion 


of  course,  that  in  the  case  of  Germany  and  Russia 
we  have  an  autocratic  conception  of  social  organi- 
zation as  compared  with  a  conception  based  on 
individual  freedom  in  England  and  America. 

Both  Mr.  Hyndman  and  Mr.  Blatchford  seem 
to  take  this  view.  **To  me,"  says  the  former, 
**it  is  quite  evident  that  if  we  Socialists  were  to 
achieve  success  we  should  at  once  be  liable  to 
attack  from  without  by  the  military  powers," 
which  calmly  overlooks  the  fact  that  Socialism  and 
anti-militarism  have  gone  much  farther  and  are 
far  better  organized  in  the  *' military"  States 
than  they  are  in  England,  and  that  the  military 
governments  have  all  their  work  cut  out  as  it  is 
to  keep  those  tendencies  in  check  within  their  own 
borders  without  quixotically  undertaking  to  per- 
form the  same  service  in  other  States. 

This  conception  of  the  State  as  the  political 
embodiment  of  homogeneous  doctrine  is  due  in 
large  part  not  only  to  the  distortion  produced  by 
false  analogy,  but  to  the  siu^val  of  a  terminology 
which  has  become  obsolete,  as,  indeed,  the  whole 
of  this  subject  is  vitiated  by  those  two  things. 
The  State  in  ancient  times  was  much  more  such 
a  personality  than  it  is  to-day,  and  it  is  mainly 
quite  modem  tendencies  which  have  broken  up  its 
doctrinal  homogeneity,  and  such  break-up  has 
restdts  which  are  of  the  very  first  importance  in 
their  bearing  upon  international  pugnacity.  The 
matter    deserves    careful    examination.     Profes- 


The  State  as  a  Person 


309 


sor  William  McDougal,  in  his  fascinating  work, 
An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,  says  in 
the  chapter  on  the  instinct  of  pugnacity : 

The  replacement  of  individual  by  collective  pugna- 
city is  most  clearly  illustrated  by  barbarous  peoples 
living  in  small,  strongly  organized  commimities. 
Within  such  communities  individual  combat  and  even 
expressions  of  personal  anger  may  be  almost  com- 
pletely suppressed,  while  the  pugnacious  instinct 
finds  itself  in  perpetual  warfare  between  communities 
whose  relations  remain  subject  to  no  law.  As  a  rule  no 
material  benefit  is  gained,  and  often  none  is  sought,  in 
these  tribal  wars.  .  .  .  All  are  kept  in  constant  fear  of 
attack,  whole  villages  are  often  exterminated,  and  the 
population  is  in  this  way  kept  down  very  far  below 
the  limit  on  which  any  pressure  on  the  means  of 
subsistence  could  arise.  This  perpetual  warfare,  like 
the  squabbles  of  a  roomful  of  quarrelsome  children, 
seems  to  be  almost  wholly  and  directly  due  to  the 
uncomplicated  operation  of  the  instinct  of  pugnacity. 
No  material  benefits  are  sought ;  a  few  heads  and  some- 
times a  slave  or  two  are  the  only  trophies  gained,  and 
if  one  asks  an  intelligent  chief  why  he  keeps  up  this 
senseless  practice,  the  best  reason  he  can  give  is  that 
unless  he  does  so  his  neighbours  will  not  respect  him 
and  his  people,  and  will  fall  upon  them  and  extermin- 
ate them. 

Now,  how  does  such  hostility  as  that  indicated 
in  this  passage  differ  from  the  hostihty  which 
marks  international  differences  in  our  day?    In 


JIO 


The  Great  Illusion 


l» 


II* 


I J 
I 


certain  very  evident  respects.  It  does  not  suffice 
in  our  case  that  the  foreigner  should  be  merely 
a  foreigner  for  us  to  want  to  kill  him:  there  must 
be  some  conflict  of  interest.  We  are  completely 
indifferent  to  the  Scandinavian,  the  Belgian,  the 
Dutchman,  the  Spaniard,  the  Austrian,  and  the 
Italian,  and  we  are  supposed  for  the  moment 
to  be  greatly  in  love  with  the  French.  The  Ger- 
man is  the  enemy.  But  ten  years  ago  it  was  the 
Frenchman  who  was  the  enemy,  and  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain was  talking  of  an  alliance  with  the  Germans 
— our  natural  allies,  he  called  them— while  it  was 
for  France  that  he  reserved  his  attacks.'  It 
cannot  be,  therefore,  that  there  is  any  inherent 
racial  hostility  in  our  national  character,  because 
the  Germans  have  not  changed  their  nature 
in  ten  years,  nor  the  French  theirs.  If  to-day 
the  French  are  quasi-allies  of  the  English  and 
the  Germans  enemies  it  is  simply  because  the 
respective  interests  or  apparent  interests  have 
modified  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  political 
preferences  have  modified  with  them.  In  other 
words,  national  hostilities  follow  the  exigencies 
of  real  or  imagined  poHtical  interests.  Surely  the 
point  need  not  be  laboured,  seeing  that  the  EngHsh 
have  boxed  the  compass  of  the  whole  of  Europe 

» I  refer  to  the  remarkable  speech  in  which  Mr.  Chamberlain 
notified  France  that  she  must  "mend  her  manners  or  take  the 
consequences"  (see  London  daily  papers  between  November  28 
and  December  5,  1899). 


1 


The  State  as  a  Person 


311 


in  their  likes  and  dislikes,  and  poured  their  hatred 
upon  the  Spaniards,  the  Dutch,  the  Americans, 
the  Danes,  the  Russians,  the  Germans,  the  French, 
and  again  the  Germans,  all  in  turn. 

The  thing  is  a  commonplace  of  individual  re- 
lationships. "I  never  noticed  that  his  collars 
were  dirty  till  he  got  in  my  way, "  said  some  one 
of  a  rival.  The  second  point  of  difference  with 
Professor  McDougal's  savage  is  that  when  we 
get  to  grips  our  conflict  does  not  include  the  whole 
tribe;  we  do  not,  in  the  BibHcal  fashion,  exter- 
minate men,  women,  children,  and  cattle.  Enough 
of  the  old  Adam  remains  for  us  to  detest  the  wo- 
men and  children,  so  that  a  British  Poet  Laureate 
could  write  of  the  "whelps  and  dams  of  murder- 
ous foes";  but  at  least  we  do  not  slaughter  them." 

But  there  is  a  third  fact  which  we  must  note — 
that  Professor  McDougal's  nation  was  made  up 

'  Not  that  a  very  great  period  separates  us  from  such  methods. 
Froude  quotes  Maltby's  Report  to  Government  as  follows: 
"I  burned  all  their  com  and  houses,  and  committed  to  the  sword 
all  that  could  be  found.  In  like  manner  I  assailed  a  castle.  When 
the  garrison  surrendered,  I  put  them  to  the  misericordia  of  my 
soldiers.  They  were  all  slain.  Thence  I  went  on,  sparing  none 
which  came  in  my  way,  which  cruelty  did  so  amaze  their  fellows 
that  they  could  not  tell  where  to  bestow  themselves."  Of  the 
commander  of  the  English  forces  at  Munster  we  read:  "He 
diverted  his  forces  into  East  Clanwilliam,  and  harassed  the 
country;  killed  all  mankind  that  were  foimd  therein  .  .  .  not 
leaving  behind  us  man  or  beast,  corn  or  cattle  .  .  .  sparing  none 
of  what  quality,  age,  or  sex  soever.  Besides  many  burned  to 
death,  we  killed  man,  woman,  child,  horse,  or  beast,  or  whatever 
we  could  find." 


312 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


313 


iiiii' 


' 


of  a  single  tribe  entirely  homogeneous.  Even  the 
fact  of  living  across  a  river  was  sufficient  to  turn 
another  tribe  into  foreigners  and  to  involve  a 
desire  to  kill  them.  The  development  from  that 
stage  to  the  present  has  included,  in  addition  to  the 
two  factors  just  enumerated,  this :  we  now  include 
as  fellow-countrymen  many  who  would  under  the 
old  conception  necessarily  be  foreigners,  and  the 
process  of  our  development,  economic  and  other- 
wise, has  made  of  foreigners,  between  whom,  in 
General  Lea's  philosophy,  there  should  exist  this 
"primordial  hostility  leading  inevitably  to  war,** 
one  State  from  which  all  conflict  of  interest  has 
disappeared  entirely.  The  modern  State  of  France 
includes  what  were,  even  in  historical  times, 
eighty  separate  and  warring  States,  since  each  of 
the  old  Gallic  cities  represented  a  different  State. 
In  England  we  have  come  to  regard  as  fellow- 
citizens  between  whom  there  can  be  no  sort  of 
conflict  of  interest  scores  of  tribes  that  spent 
their  time  mutually  throat-cutting  at  no  very 
distant  period,  as  history  goes.  We  recognize, 
indeed,  that  profound  national  differences  like 
those  which  exist  between  the  Welshman  and 
the  Englishman,  or  the  Scotchman  and  the  Irish- 
man, not  only  need  involve  no  conflict  of  inter- 
est, but  need  involve  even  no  separate  political 
existence. 

One  has  heard  in  recent  times  of  the  gradual 
revival  of  nationalism,  and  it  is  commonly  argued 


that  the  principle  of  nationality  must  stand  in  the 
way  of  co-operation  between  States.  But  the 
facts  do  not  justify  such  conclusion  for  a  moment. 
The  formation  of  States  has  disregarded  national 
divisions  altogether.  If  conflicts  are  to  coincide 
with  national  divisions,  Wales  should  co-operate 
with  Brittany  and  Ireland  as  against  Normandy 
and  England;  Provence  and  Savoy  with  Sardinia 
as  against —  I  do  not  know  what  French  province, 
because  in  the  final  rearrangement  of  European 
frontiers  races  and  provinces  have  become  so 
inextricably  mixed,  and  have  paid  so  little  regard 
to  "natural**  and  "inherent"  divisions,  that  it  is 
no  longer  possible  to  disentangle  them. 

In  the  beginning  the  State  is  a  homogeneous 
tribe  or  family,  and  in  the  process  of  economic  and 
social  development  these  divisions  so  far  break 
down  that  a  State  may  include,  as  the  British 
State  does,  not  only  half  a  dozen  different  races 
in  the  Mother  Country,  but  a  thousand  different 
races  scattered  over  various  parts  of  the  earth — 
white,    black,    yellow,    brown,    copper-coloiu-ed. 
This,  surely,  is  one  of  the  great  sweeping  tendencies 
of  history — a  tendency  which  operates  immedi- 
ately any  complicated  economic  life  is  set  up. 
What  justification  have  we,  therefore,  for  saying 
dogmatically    that  a    tendency    to  co-operation 
which  has  swept  before  it  profound  ethnic  differ- 
ences,  social   and  political   divisions,   a  process 
which  has  been  constant  from  the  dawn  of  men*s 


i; 


3H 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


3^5 


'fl^1fl  I 


ilHii 


iip^l 


attempts  to  live  and  labour  together,  is  to  stop 
at  the  wall  of  modern  State  divisions,  which 
represent  none  of  the  profound  divisions  of  the 
human  race,  but  mainly  mere  administrative 
convenience,  and  embody  a  conception  which  is 
being  every  day  profoundly  modified? 

Some  indication  of  the  processes  involved  in 
this  development  has  already  been  given  in  the 
outUne  sketch  in  Chapter  II.  of  this  section,  to 
which  the  reader  may  be  referred   (p.   162).     I 
have  there  attempted  to  make  plain  that  pari 
passu  with  the  drift  from  physical  force  towards 
economic  inducement  goes  a  corresponding  diminu- 
tion of  pugnacity,  until  the  psychological  factor 
which  is  the  exact  reverse  of  pugnacity  comes  to 
have  more  force  even  than  the  economic  one. 
Quite  apart  from  any  economic  question,  it  is  no 
longer   possible  for  the   British    Government  to 
order  the  extermination  of  a  whole  population,  of 
the  women  and  children,  in  the  old  Biblical  style. 
In  the  same  way,  the  greater  economic  interde- 
pendence which  improved  means  of  communica- 
tion have  provoked  must  carry  with  it  a  greater 
moral  interdependence,  and  a  tendency  which  has 
broken   down   profound   national   divisions,   like 
those  which  separated  the  Celt  and  the  Saxon, 
will  certainly  break  down  on  the  psychological 
side  divisions  which  are  obviously  more  artificial. 
Among  the  multiple  factors  which  have  entered 
into  the  great  sweeping  tendency  just  sketched 


are  one  or  two  which  stand  out  as  most  likely  to 
have  immediate  effect  on  the  breakdown  of  a 
purely  psychological  hostility  embodied  by  merely 
State  divisions.     One  is  that  lessening  of  the  re- 
ciprocal  sentiment    of    collective    responsibility 
which  the  complex  heterogeneity  of  the  modem 
State  involves.     What  do  I  mean  by  this  sense 
of    collective    responsibility?    To    the    Chinese 
Boxer  all  Europeans  are  "foreign  devils" ;  between 
Germans,   English,   Russians  there  is  little  dis- 
tinction, just  as  to  the  black  in  Africa  there  is 
little  differentiation  between  the  various  white 
races.    Even  the  yokel  in  England  talks  of  **  them 
foreigners."     If  a  Chinese  Boxer  is  injured  by  a 
Frenchman,  he  kills  a  German,  and  feels  himself 
avenged — they  are  all  "foreign  devils."     When 
an  African  tribe  suffers  from  the  depredations  of  a 
Belgian  trader,  the  next  white  man  who  comes  into 
its  territory,  whether  he  happens  to  be  an  English- 
man or  a  Frenchman,  loses  his  life;  the  tribes- 
men also  feel  themselves  avenged.     But  if  the 
Chinese  Boxer  had  our  clear  conception  of  the 
different   European   nations,   he   would   feel   no 
psychological   satisfaction  in   killing   a  German 
because  a  Frenchman  had  injtired  him.     There 
must  be  in  the  Boxer*s  mind  some   collective 
responsibility  between  the  two  Europeans,  or  in 
the  negro's  mind  between  the  two  white  men,  in 
order  to  obtain  this  psychological  satisfaction.     It 
that  collective  responsibility  does  not  exist,  the 


3i6 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


317 


Hlnil^ 


hostility  to  the  second  white  man  in  each  case  is 
not  even  raised. 

Now,  our  international  hostilities  are  largely 
based  on  the  notion  of  a  collective  responsibility 
in  each  of  the  various  States  against  which  our 
hostiHty  is  directed,  which  does  not,  in  fact, 
exist.  There  is  at  the  present  moment  great  ill- 
feeling  in  England  against  the  ''German."  Now, 
"German"  is  a  non-existent  abstraction.  We 
are  angry  with  the  German  because  he  is  building 
warships,  conceivably  directed  against  us;  but  a 
great  many  Germans  are  as  much  opposed  to  that 
increase  of  armament  as  are  we,  and  the  desire 
of  the  yokel  to  "have  a  go  at  them  Germans" 
depends  absolutely  upon  a  confusion  just  as  great 
as— indeed,  it  is  greater  than— that  which  exists 
in  the  mind  of  the  Boxer,  who  cannot  differentiate 
between  the  various  European  peoples.  Mr. 
Blatchford  commenced  the  series  of  articles 
which  have  done  so  much  to  accentuate  ill- 
feeling  with  this  phrase: 

Germany  is  deliberately  preparing  to  destroy  the 
British  Empire; 

and  later  in  the  articles  he  added: 

The  German  nation  is  homogeneous,  organized. 
Their  Imperial  policy  is  continuous,  their  rulers  work 
strenuously,  sleeplessly,  silently.  Their  principle  is 
the  theory  of  blood  and  iron. 


It  would  be  difficult  to  pack  a  more  dangerous 
untruth  into  so  few  lines.  What  are  the  facts? 
If  "Germany"  means  the  bulk  of  the  German 
people,  Mr.  Blatchford  is  perfectly  aware  that  he 
is  not  telling  the  truth.  It  is  not  true  to  say  of 
the  bulk  of  the  German  people  that  they  are 
deliberately  preparing  to  destroy  the  British 
Empire.  The  bulk  of  the  German  people,  if 
they  are  represented  in  any  one  party  at  all,  are 
represented  by  the  Social  Democrats,  who  have 
stood  from  the  first  resolutely  against  any  such 
intention.  Now  the  facts  have  to  be  misstated 
in  this  way  in  order  to  produce  that  temper  which 
makes  for  war.  If  the  facts  are  correctly  stated, 
no  such  temper  arises. 

What  has  a  particularly  competent  German 
to  say  to  Mr.  Blatchford 's  generalization?  Mr. 
Fried,  the  editor  of  Die  Friedenswarte,  writes: 

There  is  no  one  German  people,  no  single  Germany. 
.  .  .  There  are  more  abrupt  contrasts  between  Ger- 
mans and  Germans  than  between  Germans  and  In- 
dians. Nay,  the  contradistinctions  within  Germany 
are  greater  than  those  between  Germans  and  the 
units  of  any  other  foreign  nation  whatever.  It  might 
be  possible  to  make  efforts  to  promote  good  under- 
standing between  Germans  and  Englishmen,  between 
Germans  and  Frenchmen,  to  organize  visits  between 
nation  and  nation;  but  it  will  be  for  ever  impossible 
to  set  on  foot  any  such  efforts  at  an  understanding 
between   German   Social    Democrats   and   Prussian 


ii- 


ii 


II 


I 


!    I 


!   I    ) 


:i 


Ulna. 


318 


The  Great  Illusion 


Junkers,  between  German  Anti-Semites  and  Gennftn 
Jews.* 

The  disappearance  of  most  international  hostil- 
ity depends  upon  nothing  more  complicated 
than  the  realization  of  facts  which  are  Httle  more 
complex  than  the  geographical  knowledge  which 
enables  us  to  see  that  the  anger  of  the  yokel  (to 
whom  all  ''furriners"  are  one)  is  absurd  when  he 
pummels  a  Frenchman  because  an  ItaUan  has 
swindled  him 

It  may  be  argued  that  there  never  has  existed 
in  the  past  this  identification  between  a  people 
and  the  acts  of  its  Government  which  rendered 
the  hatred  of  one  country  for  another  logical, 
yet  that  the  hatred  has  arisen.  That  is  true;  but 
certain  new  factors  have  entered  recently  to  modify 
this  problem.  One  is  that  never  in  the  history 
of  the  world  have  nations  been  so  complex  as  they 
are  to-day;  and  the  second  is  that  never  before 
have  the  dominating  interests  of  mankind  so  com- 
pletely cut  across  State  divisions  as  they  do  to-day. 
The  third  factor  is  that  never  before  has  it  been 
possible,  as  it  is  possible  by  oxir  means  of  com- 

'In  The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany  the  author  says: 
"  Germany  implies  not  one  people  but  many  people  ...  of 
different  cultures,  different  social  and  political  institutions 
diversities  of  intellectual  and  economic  life.  When  most  for- 
eigners speak  of  Germany  they  generally  have  in  mind  Prussia. 
...  in  but  few  things  can  Prussia  be  regarded  as  typical  of 
the  whole  Empire." 


The  State  as  a  Person 


319 


munication  to-day,  to  offset  a  solidarity  of  classes 
and  ideas  as  against  a  presumed  State  solidarity. 
Take  an  actual  instance.     When  the  Russian 
fleet  sunk  the  Hull  fishing-smacks,  not  long  since, 
England  could  have  gone  to  war  with  Russia — 
to  the  great  satisfaction,  probably,  of  the  Russian 
Government,  at  that  time  at  grips  with  a  budding 
Liberal  movement  in  its  own  country.     In  so  far  as 
Liberal  opinion  can  obtain  expression  in  Russia, 
that  opinion  was  as  condemnatory  of  the  action 
of  the    Admiral    as    was    opinion    in   England. 
Imagine  for  a  moment  that  Liberalism  had  made 
a  little  more  progress,  as  it  has  lately,  in  Rus- 
sia, and  was  a  little  more  articulate,  and  that 
the  Russian  Liberals  were  using  this  incident  to 
discredit  autocracy  in  Russia,  and  to  advance  a 
cause  animated  by  English  ideas.     England  would, 
in  declaring  war  upon  the  Russian  Government, 
be  declaring  war,  in  fact,  upon  the  Liberals,  upon 
English   ideas.     (For  a  state   of  war  would  be 
used  by  the  Russian  Government  as  excuse  for 
crushing  Russian  Liberalism.)     Would  the  kill- 
ing of  Russian  peasants  bring  to  any  EngHshman 
imderstanding  the  facts  of  the  case  any  satisfac- 
tion to  his  just  anger  against  the  Russian  Admiral? 
Might  the  Englishman  not  as  soon  kill  a  ntunber 
of  Chinamen?    And  in  killing  Russian  Liberals 
could  he  overlook  the  fact  that  he  was  killing 
those  as  keenly  desirous  of  the  pimishment  of  the 
Russian  Admiral  as  EngHshmen  could  be? 


320 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


!  liif! 


i! 


Never  at  any  stage  of  the  world's  development 
has  there  existed  as  to-day  the  machinery  for 
embodying  these  interests  and  class  ideas  and 
ideals  which  cut  across  frontiers.  It  is  not  gen- 
erally imderstood  how  many  of  our  activities  have 
become  international.  Two  great  forces  have 
become  internationalized:  Capital  on  the  one 
hand,  Labour,  or  Socialism,  on  the  other. 

The  Labour  and  Socialist  movements  have 
always  been  international,  and  become  more 
so  every  year.  Few  considerable  strikes  take 
place  in  any  one  country  without  the  labour 
organizations  of  other  countries  furnishing  help, 
and  very  large  sums  have  been  contributed  by 
the  laboiu-  organizations  of  various  countries  in 
this  way.  The  International  Socialist  Bureau  was 
created  in  1900,  having  its  permanent  secretariat 
at  Brussels.  Each  year,  at  the  International 
Congress,  the  delegates  from  the  various  countries 
get  nearer  to  common  action.  At  the  Stuttgart 
Congress  of  1907  one  of  the  subjects  of  discussion 
was  the  practical  means  of  stopping  war  by  Inter- 
national Trades  Union  intervention,  and  the 
principle  of  such  intervention  was  voted  unani- 
mously by  the  Congress.  Such  international  co- 
operation between  the  Socialist  parties  has  been 
much  more  effective  than  is  generally  realized. 
Diuing  the  Fashoda  crisis  the  French  and  Ger- 
man Socialists  were  in  daily  communication,  and 
the  line  taken  by  the  Socialist  party  in  the  French 


The  State  as  a  Person 


321 


Parliament  and  the  Social  Democrats  in  the  Reich- 
stag was  predetermined  by  a  conference  between 
the  two.  In  the  same  way  there  was  a  conference 
between  the  Austrian  and  Italian  Socialists  at 
Trieste  when  Austro-Italian  relations  became 
strained.  Again,  there  was  the  same  co-operation 
between  the  Swedish  and  Norwegian  Socialists 
when  war  was  threatened  between  those  two 
countries.  But  international  Socialism  has  gone 
farther:  it  is  notorious  that  ministerial  tactics 
in  France  were  dh-ectly  modified  as  the  result  of 
the  decision  taken  by  the  International  Sociahst 
Congress  at  Amsterdam,  in  which  the  line  to  be 
taken  by  the  French  Socialists  was  there  laid  down. 
In  other  words,  the  policy  of  the  French  Ministry 
was  being  dictated  as  much  by  Socialists  in  Ger- 
many and  in  Belgium  as  by  its  own  supporters  in 
France. 

The  progress  of  the  International  Trades  Union, 
as  distinct  from  the  Socialist  bodies,  may  be 
indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  1904  something  over 
two  millions,  representing  twelve  countries,  were 
affiliated,  whereas  in  1908  nineteen  countries  were 
represented  in  a  total  membership  of  nearly  six 
millions.  Although  this  international  body  works 
on  the  principle  of  being  non-political,  at  the  Paris 
Conference  it  voted  a  motion  of  sympathy  unan- 
imously in  favour  of  "the  plucky  Spanish  com- 
rades who  opposed  the  order  of  mobilization  by  a 
general  strike, "  which  motion  also  gave  expression 


iilil< 


:^|;i  f; 


*li! 


■ 


322 


The  Great  Illusion 


to  the  hope  that  the  workers  of  all  countries  would 
shortly  be  sufficiently  organized  internationally 
to  prevent  war  by  their  influence  and  the  employ- 
ment of  all  the  means  in  their  power.  At  the  last 
general  strike  in  Sweden,  1909,  the  German 
Trades  Unionists  contributed  fifty  thousand 
potmds,  the  English  Trades  Unionists  nearly  two 
thousand,  and  so  on.' 

So  much  for  the  labour  side.  What  for  the  side 
of  capital?  With  reference  to  capital,  it  may  al- 
most be  said  that  it  is  organized  so  naturally 
internationally  that  formal  organization  is  not 
necessary.    When  the  Bank  of  England  is  in 

'The  last  Congress  at  Copenhagen  dealt  with  such  practical 
questions  as  the  general  line  to  be  taken  by  SociaUsts  and  ad- 
vanced poHtical  parties  with  reference  to  the  co-operative  move- 
ment; measures  were  taken  for  unifying  working-class  legislation 
throughout  Europe,  for  insuring  common  action  in  the  matter  of 
international  arbitration  and  disarmament,  and  practical  means 
were  again  discussed  for  giving  effect  to  the  resolution  of  the 
International  Congress.  For  the  International  Trades  Union 
movement  there  is  an  international  secretariat  at  Berlin,  and  each 
of  the  adhering  bodies  pays  a  due  of  1.50  marks  a  year  for  each 
thousand  Trades  Unionists.  Common  action  in  the  matter  of 
"blacklegs"  resulted  from  the  Congress  held  by  the  International 
Trades  Union  at  Christiania,  and  was  confirmed  by  the  Paris 
Conference  of  1909;  and  common  action  was  also  decided  in  this 
last  Congress  on  the  question  of  "sweating."  A  beginning  was 
made  also  in  arriving  at  a  common  minimum  European  eight- 
hour  day.  The  International  Trades  Union  body  publishes  a 
yearly  report  in  German,  French,  and  English,  and  the  total 
number  of  Trades  Unionists  is  there  given  as  very  nearly  ten 
millions,  of  whom  rather  more  than  half  are  affiliated  inter- 
nationally. 


The  State  as  a  Person 


3^3 


danger,  it  is  the  Bank  of  France  which  comes 
automatically  to  its  aid,  even  in  a  time  of  acute 
political  hostility.  It  has  been  my  good  fortune 
in  the  last  ten  years  to  discuss  these  matters  with 
financiers  on  one  side  and  labour  leaders  on  the 
other,  and  I  have  always  been  particularly  struck 
by  the  fact  that  I  have  found  in  these  two  classes 
precisely  the  same  attitude  of  internationalization. 
In  no  department  of  human  activity  is  intema- 
tionaHzation  so  complete  as  in  finance.  The 
capitalist  has  no  country,  and  he  knows,  if  he  be  of 
the  modem  type,  that  arms  and  conquests  and 
jugglery  with  frontiers  serve  no  ends  of  his,  and 
may  very  well  defeat  them.  But  employers,  as 
apart  from  capitalists,  are  also  developing  a  strong 
international  cohesive  organization.  Among  the 
BerUn  despatches  in  the  Times  of  April  18, 
1910,  I  find  the  following  concerning  a  big  strike 
in  the  building  trade,  in  which  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  million  men  went  out.  Quoting  a  writer  in 
the  North  German  Gazette,  the  correspondent  says: 

The  writer  lays  stress  upon  the  efficiency  of  the  em- 
ployers' arrangements.  He  says,  in  particular,  that 
it  will  probably  be  possible  to  extend  the  lock-out 
to  industries  associated  with  the  building  industry, 
especially  the  cement  industry,  and  that  the  em- 
ployers are  completing  a  ring  of  cartel  treaties,  which 
will  prevent  German  workmen  from  finding  employ- 
ment in  neighbouring  countries,  and  will  insure  for 
German  employers  all  possible  support  from  abroad. 


I  'j 


I     n 


I 


'    i' 


i! 


;l 


iiii 


'fn 


324 


The  Great  Illusion 


It  is  said  that  Switzerland  and  Austria  were  to  con- 
clude treaties  yesterday  on  the  same  conditions  as 
Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark,  Holland,  and  France,  and 
that  Belgiimi  and  Italy  would  come  in,  so  that  there 
will  be  complete  co-operation  on  the  part  of  all  Ger- 
many's neighbours  except  Russia.  In  the  circum- 
stances the  men's  organs  rather  over-labour  the  point 
when  they  produce  elaborate  evidence  of  premedita- 
tion. The  Vorwarts  proves  that  the  employers 
have  long  been  preparing  for  "a  trial  of  strength," 
but  that  is  admitted.  The  official  organ  of  the 
employers  says,  in  so  many  words,  that  any  interven- 
tion is  useless  until  "the  forces  have  been  measured 
in  open  battle. 


tt 


And  have  not  these  forces  begun  already  to 
affect  the  psychological  domain  with  which  we  are 
now  especially  dealing?  Do  we  place  national 
vanity,  for  instance,  on  the  same  plane  as  the 
individual?  Have  we  not  already  realized  the 
absurdity  involved? 

I  have  quoted  Admiral  Mahan  as  follows: 

That  extension  of  national  authority  over  alien 
communities,  which  is  the  dominant  note  in  the  world 
politics  of  to-day,  dignifies  and  enlarges  each  State 
and  each  citizen  that  enters  its  fold.  .  .  .  Sentiment, 
imagination,  aspiration,  the  satisfaction  of  the  ra- 
tional and  moral  faculties  in  some  object  better  than 
bread  alone,  all  must  find  a  part  in  a  worthy  motive. 
Like  individuals,  nations  and  empires  have  souls  as 
well  as  bodies.     Great  and  beneficent  achievement 


The  State  as  a  Person 


325 


ministers  to  worthier  contentment  than  the  filling  of 
the  pocket. 

Have  we  not  come  to  realize  that  this  is  all 
moonshine,  and  very  mischievous  moonshine? 
Let  us  examine  it  a  little. 

A  man  who  boasts  of  his  possessions  is  not  a  very 
pleasant,  admirable  type,  but  at  least  his  posses- 
sions are  for  his  own  use  and  do  bring  a  tangible 
satisfaction,  materially  as  well  as  sentimentally. 
He  is  the  object  of  a  certain  social  deference  by 
reason  of  his  wealth — a  deference  which  has  not  a 
very  high  motive,  if  you  will,  but  the  outward 
and  visible  signs  of  which  are  pleasing  to  a  vain 
man.  But  is  the  same  in  any  sense  true,  despite 
Admiral  Mahan,  of  the  individual  citizen  of  a  big 
State  as  compared  with  the  individual  citizen  of  a 
small  one?  Does  any  one  think  of  paying  defer- 
ence to  the  Russian  moujik  because  he  happens 
to  belong  to  one  of  the  biggest  empires  terri- 
torially? Does  any  one  think  of  despising  an 
Ibsen  or  a  B  jomsen,  or  any  educated  Scandinavian 
or  Belgian  or  Hollander,  because  they  happen  to 
belong  to  the  smallest  nations  in  Europe?  The 
thing  is  absurd,  and  the  notion  is  simply  due  to 
inattention.  Just  as  we  commonly  overlook  the 
fact  that  the  individual  citizen  is  quite  imaffected 
materially  by  the  extent  of  his  nation's  territory, 
that  the  material  position  of  the  individual  Dutch- 
man as  a  citizen  of  a  small  State  will  not  be  im- 


326 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


1^1 


wk 


proved  by  the  mere  fact  of  the  absorption  of  his 
State  by  the  German  Empire,  in  which  case  he  will 
become  the  citizen  of  a  great  nation,  so  in  the  same 
way  his  moral  position  remains  unchanged;  and 
the  notion  that  an  individual  Russian  is  ''digni- 
fied and  enlarged  "  each  time  that  Russia  conquers 
some  new  Asiatic  outpost,  or  Russifies  a  State 
like  Finland,  or  that  the  Norwegian  would  be 
"dignified"  were  his  State  conquered  by  Russia 
and  he  became  a  Russian,  is,  of  course,  sheer  senti- 
mental fustian  of  a  very  mischievous  order.  This 
is  the  more  emphasized  when  we  remember  that 
the  best  men  of  Russia  are  looking  forward  wist- 
fully, not  to  the  enlargement,  but  to  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  unwieldy  giant — "stupid  with  the 
stupidity  of  giants,  ferocious  with  their  ferocity" 
— and  the  rise  in  its  stead  of  a  multipHcity  of  self- 
contained,  self -knowing  communities,  "whose  mem- 
bers will  be  imited  together  by  organic  and  vital 
sympathies,  and  not  by  their  common  submission 
to  a  common  policeman." 

How  small  and  thin  a  pretence  is  all  the  talk  of 
national  prestige  when  the  matter  is  tested  by  its 
relation  to  the  individual  is  shown  by  the  common- 
places of  our  everyday  social  intercourse.  In 
social  consideration  everything  else  takes  pre- 
cedence of  nationality,  even  in  those  circles  where 
Chauvinism  is  the  cult.  British  Royalty  is  so 
impressed  with  the  dignity  which  attaches  to 
membership  in  the  British  Empire  that  its  Princes 


will  marry  into  the  royal  houses  of  the  smallest 
and  meanest  States  in  Europe,  while  they  would 
regard  marriage  with  a  British  commoner  as  an 
unheard-of  mesalliance.  This  standard  of  social 
judgment  so  marks  all  the  European  royalties 
that  at  the  present  time  not  one  ruler  in  Europe 
belongs,  properly  speaking,  to  the  race  which  he 
rules.  In  all  .social  associations  an  analogous 
rule  is  followed.  In  our  "selectest"  circles  an 
Italian,  Roumanian,  Portuguese,  or  even  Turkish 
noble,  is  received  where  an  EngHsh  tradesman 
would  be  taboo. 

This  tendency  has  struck  almost  all  authorities 
who  have  investigated  scientifically  modem  inter- 
national relations.  Thus  Mr.  T.  Baty,  the  well- 
known  authority  on  international  law,  writes  as 
follows: 

All  over  the  world  society  is  organizing  itself  by 
strata.  The  English  merchant  goes  on  business  to 
Warsaw,  Hamburg,  or  Leghorn;  he  finds  in  the  mer- 
chants of  Italy,  Germany,  and  Russia  the  ideas,  the 
standard  of  living,  the  sjnnpathies,  and  the  aversions 
which  are  familiar  to  him  at  home.  Printing  and  the 
locomotive  have  enormously  reduced  the  importance 
of  locality.  It  is  the  mental  atmosphere  of  its  fellows, 
and  not  of  its  neighbourhood,  which  the  child  of  the 
yoimger  generation  is  beginning  to  breathe.  Whether 
he  reads  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  or  Tit-Bits, 
the  modem  citizen  is  becoming  at  once  cosmopolitan 
and  class-centred.    Let  the  process  work  for  a  few 


328 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  State  as  a  Person 


329 


:'V 


more  years;  we  shall  see  the  common  interests  of 
cosmopolitan  classes  revealing  themselves  as  far  more 
potent  factors  than  the  shadowy  common  interests 
of  the  subjects  of  States.  The  Argentine  merchant 
and  the  British  capitalist  alike  regard  the  Trades 
Union  as  a  possible  enemy — whether  British  or  Argen- 
tine matters  to  them  less  than  nothing.  The  Ham- 
hnfg  docker  and  his  brother  of  London  do  not  put 
national  interests  before  the  primary  claims  of 
caste.  International  class  feeling  is  a  reality,  and 
not  even  a  nebulous  reality;  the  nebula  has  developed 
centres  of  condensation.  Only  the  other  day  Sir  W. 
Runciman,  who  is  certainly  not  a  Conservative, 
presided  over  a  meeting  at  which  there  were  laid  the 
foundations  of  an  International  Shipping  Union, 
which  is  intended  to  unite  shipowners  of  whatever 
country  in  a  common  organization.  When  it  is  once 
recognized  that  the  real  interests  of  modem  people  are 
not  national,  but  social,  the  results  may  be  surprising.  * 

As  Mr.  Baty  points  out,  this  tendency,  which  he 
calls  "stratification,'*  extends  to  all  classes: 

It  is  impossible  to  ignore  the  significance  of  the 
International  Congresses,  not  only  of  Socialism,  but 
of  pacificism,  of  Esperantism,  of  feminism,  of  every 
kind  of  art  and  science,  that  so  conspicuously  set  the 
seal  upon  the  holiday  season.  Nationality  as  a  limit- 
ing force  is  breaking  down  before  cosmopolitanism. 
In  directing  its  forces  into  an  international  channel, 
Socialism  will  have  no  difficulty  whatever.  .  .  .  We 
are,  therefore,  confronted  with  a  coming  condition  of 

*  International  Law. 


affairs  in  which  the  force  of  nationality  will  be 
distinctly  inferior  to  the  force  of  class-cohesion,  and  in 
which  classes  will  be  internationally  organized  so  as  to 
wield  their  force  with  effect.  The  prospect  induces 
some  curious  reflections. 

We  have  here,  at  present  in  merely  embryonic 
form,  a  group  of  motives  otherwise  opposed,  but 
meeting  and  agreeing  upon  one  point :  the  organiza- 
tion of  society  on  other  than  territorial  and  na- 
tional divisions.  When  motives  of  such  breadth 
as  these  give  force  to  a  tendency,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  very  stars  in  their  courses  are  working 
to  the  same  end. 


PART  III 

The  Practical  Outcome 


33« 


■»i 


CHAPTER  I 


ARMAMENT,  BUT  NOT  ALONE  ARMAMENT 

Why  we  cannot  abandon  armament  irrespective  of  others — The 
hviman  nature  of  this  part  of  the  problem — Why  armaments 
alone  are  likely  to  lead  to  war — Why  a^eements  between 
Governments  are  likely  to  fail,  and  must  in  any  case  be  of 
limited  effect. 


1 


N  the  first  edition  of  this  book  I  wrote: 


Are  we  immediately  to  cease  preparation  for  war, 
since  otir  defeat  cannot  advantage  otir  enemy  nor 
do  us  in  the  long  run  much  harm?  No  such  con- 
clusion results  from  a  study  of  the  considerations 
elaborated  here.  It  is  evident  that  so  long  as  the 
misconception  we  are  dealing  with  is  all  but  universal 
in  Etirope,  so  long  as  the  nations  believe  that  in 
some  way  the  military  and  poUtical  subjugation  of 
others  will  bring  with  it  a  tangible  material  advantage 
to  the  conqueror,  we  all  do,  in  fact,  stand  in  danger 
from  such  aggression.  Not  his  interest,  but  what  he 
deems  to  be  his  interest,  will  furnish  the  real  motive 
of  our  prospective  enemy's  action.  And  as  the 
illusion  with  which  we  are  dealing  does,  indeed, 
dominate  all  those  minds  most  active  in  European 
politics,  we  must,  while  this  remains  the  case,  regard 

933 


334 


The  Great  Illusion 


an  aggression,  even  such  as  that  which  Mr.  Harrison 
foresees,  as  within  the  bounds  of  practical  politics. 
(What  is  not  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  is  the 
extent  of  devastation  which  he  foresees  as  the  result 
of  such  attack,  which,  I  think,  the  foregoing  pages 
sufficiently  demonstrate.) 

On  this  ground  alone  I  deem  that  we  or  any  other 
nation  are  justified  in  taking  means  of  self-defence 
to  prevent  such  aggression.  This  is  not,  therefore, 
a  plea  for  disarmament  irrespective  of  the  action  of 
other  nations.  So  long  as  current  political  philosophy 
in  Europe  remains  what  it  is,  I  would  not  urge  the 
reduction  of  our  war  budget  by  a  single  sovereign 
or  a  single  dollar. 


I  see  no  reason  to  alter  a  word  of  this,  but  I 
would  add  one  or  two,  as  some  of  my  critics  seem 
to  have  overlooked  a  part  of  the  conclusion  which 
goes  with  the  foregoing — ^namely,  that  so  long  as 
the  production  of  war  material  and  the  training 
for  war  are  our  only  preparation  for  peace,  we 
shall  almost  certainly  prepare  not  for  peace  but 
for  war,  and  every  ship  that  we  add  does  but  add 
to  the  wealth  which  we  throw  into  the  gulf,  and, 
by  increasing  the  suspicion  and  distrust  that  go 
with  the  ever-increasing  weight  of  material,  does 
but  render  a  solution  of  the  matter  more  difficult. 

What  is  the  situation  as  exemplified  for  instance 
in  the  present  Anglo-German  rivalry? 

At  present  there  is  only  one  policy  that  holds 
the  field — to  go  on  building  ships.    The  other 


Not  Alone  Armament 


335 


policy — ^looking  to  an  agreement  for  the  limitation 
of  armaments — Germany  has  rejected  for  reasons 
which  are  sufficiently  clear.    While  Great  Britain 
at  the  present  moment  is  predominant,  Germany, 
in  the  terms  of  current  diplomacy,  exists  on  the 
sufferance  of  Great  Britain.    That  is  to  say,  a 
nation  of  sixty  million  people,  constituting  the 
greatest  military  Power  in  Europe,  is,  in  so  far  as 
the  field  of  activity  covered  by  naval  force  is  con- 
cerned— a  field  of  activity  which  our  own  philo- 
sophy, as  voiced  by  Admiral  Mahan,  represents 
as  the  very  key  of  political  influence  in  the  world 
at  large,  and  all  the  advantages  that  are  supposed 
to  go  therewith — at  the  mercy  of  forty  millions. 
Can  we  expect  a  proud  people,  as  political  doc- 
trines go  at  present,  to  accept  such  a  situation? 
England  would  not,   and   does   not,   accept   it. 
Germany,  like  England,  is  determined  to  base 
her  national  security,   not   on  the  good-will  of 
foreigners,   but    on  her  own  strength.    English 
statesmanship  takes  exactly  the  same  view. 

I  am  aware  that,  according  to  the  English  view, 
the  situation  of  the  two  countries  is  not  exactly 
identical,  in  that  while  England's  very  existence 
reposes  on  sea  power,  the  existence  of  Germany 
reposes  on  land  power.  (I  am  talking  always 
now  in  the  terms  of  currently  accepted  political 
doctrine.)  But  our  highly  organized  modem 
State  exists  not  only  for  the  protection  of  its 
people,   but   for   their   advantage.     Now,    quite 


336 


The  Great  Illusion 


Not  Alone  Armament 


2>2>1 


apart  from  all  question  of  defence,  the  English 
have  always  urged  that  great  advantage'  in  world 
politics  goes  with  the  possession  of  sea  power,  and 
that  no  statesman  can  be  properly  armed  in  his 
diplomatic  struggle  with  another  Power  while 
that  other  Power  has  all  the  advantage  of  sea 
force.    Admiral  Mahan  himself  says*: 

Observant  men  know  that  there  have  been  at  least 
three  wars  in  this  so-called  period  of  peace  (during 
the  last  decade) — wars  none  the  less  because  no 
blows  were  exchanged,  for  force  determined  the  issues. 
The  common  phrase  for  such  transactions  is  "the  risk 
of  war  has  been  averted."  The  expression  is  danger- 
ously misleading,  because  it  is  supposed  that  the 

»  Professor  Hans  Delbruck,  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  Sep- 
tember, 1909,  says:  "The  definite  aim  which  Germany  sets  herself 
is  not  to  acquire  vast  colonies.  .  .  .  The  German  Navy  is  not, 
and  never  will  be,  sufficiently  strong  directly  to  menace  England. 
...  A  German  invasion  of  England  is  out  of  the  question,  even 
under  the  most  favourable  circumstances.  .  .  .  In  Germany  these 
English  ideas  are  considered  either  vain  illusions  or  party  politics. 
It  will  be  remembered  that,  during  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  British  public  were  continually  scared  by  a  threatened 
invasion  either  from  France  or  Russia.  .  .  .  What  Germany  has 
set  herself  to  do  is  to  enforce  such  a  position  that  German  in- 
fluence, German  capital,  German  commerce,  German  engineering, 
and  German  intelligence,  can  compete  on  equal  terms  with  other 
nations."  The  more  we  urge  that  a  great  navy  is  wrapped  up 
with  commercial  success,  the  more  we  urge  that  a  powerful  navy 
can  impose  favourable  conditions,  the  more  reason  has  Germany 
to  oppose  the  growth  of  the  British  Navy,  and  get  a  large  one  of 
her  own. 

*  Daily  Mail,  July  16,  19 10. 


controlling  element  in  this  conclusion  has  been  the 
adroitness  of  statesmen,  whereas  the  existence  and 
calculation  of  force  have  been  really  determinative. 
Force,  too,  not  merely  in  the  raw  material,  but  the 
organized  force  of  armies  and  navies  ready — or 
unready — to  move. 

His  commentator,  The  Daily  Mail,  adds: 

Without  sufficient  armaments  a  Power  can  be 
beaten  in  diplomacy  or  battle,  or  in  both.  .  .  .  What 
happens  when  the  interests  of  two  Powers  conflict? 
The  statesman  of  the  first  Power  says  to  the  second 
Power,  "We  must  beg  you  to  give  way."  The 
second  Power  replies,  "We  really  cannot."  The 
first  Power  rejoins,  "If  so,  we  are  sorry,  but  it  will 
be  very  unpleasant  for  you."  The  second  Power 
then  calculates  its  battleships  and  army  corps.  It 
calls  upon  its  General  Staff  for  a  statement  as  to 
whether  it  has  a  chance  of  winning.  If  it  learns  that 
it  has  no  chance — that  it  has  only  twenty  Dread- 
noughts to  the  other  Power's  thirty — then  it  will 
give  way  rather  than  meet  disaster.  It  has  suffered 
defeat,  if  a  bloodless  one.  It  has  surrendered  its 
interests,  and  those  interests  may  be  vital.  From 
start  to  finish  this  process,  which  is  known  as  diplo- 
macy, depends  on  estimates  of  force  and  on  the 
existence  of  force.  But  because  force  all  the  time 
remains  in  the  background,  the  ignorant  misconceive 
its  real  nature.  They  do  not  see  that  Russia,  for 
example,  by  her  surrender  to  the  German  ultimatum 
of  last  year,  lost  as  much  as  by  her  defeat  at  the  hands 
of  Japan  in  the  actual  war  in  the  Far  East.     Indeed, 


I 


338 


The  Great  Illusion 


she  lost  more,  for  her  interests  in  the  Far  East  were 
less  vital  than  those  in  the  Balkans. 

But  if  the  foregoing  reasoning  appeals  with  force 
to  Englishmen,  who  already  have  the  predom- 
inance of  sea  power,  how  is  it  likely  to  appeal  to 
Germans,  whose  sea  power  is  so  greatly  inferior? 
They  are  asking  of  Germany  very  much  more  than 
she  asks  of  them.  She  says,  "We  want  equality 
of  force,  an  equilibrium."  England  says:  **We 
don't  want  equilibriiun,  we  want  domination." 
The  German  Admiral  Rosendahl,  discussing  the 
British  and  German  navies  and  the  proposals  for 
disarmament,  wrote  in  the  Deutsche  Revue  for 
June,  1909: 

If  England  claims,  and  it  is  permanently  necessary 
for  her,  an  absolute  supremacy  at  sea,  that  is  her 
affair,  and  no  sensible  man  will  reproach  her  for  it; 
but  it  is  quite  a  different  thing  for  a  great  Power 
like  the  German  Empire,  by  an  international  treaty, 
supposed  to  be  binding  for  all  time,  expressly  to 
recognize  and  accept  this  in  principle.  Assuredly 
we  do  not  wish  to  enter  into  a  building  competition 
with  England  on  a  footing  of  equality  .  .  .  but  a 
political  agreement  on  the  basis  of  the  unconditional 
superiority  of  the  British  fleet  would  be  the  equivalent 
of  an  abandonment  of  our  national  dignity;  and 
though  we  do  not,  speaking  broadly,  wish  to  dispute 
England's  predominance  at  sea,  yet  we  do  mean, 
in  case  of  war,  to  be,  or  to  become,  the  masters  of 
our  own  coasts. 


Not  Alone  Armament 


339 


Professor  Spenser  Wilkinson,  who  quotes  this 
passage,'  adds:  ''There  is  not  a  word  in  this 
which  can  give  just  cause  of  offence  to  England  or 
EngUshmen."  The  redoubtable  Mr.  Blatchford 
himself,  completely  recognizes  the  reasonableness 
of  the  German  view  in  this  matter.     He  says 


s . 


It  does  not  require  a  very  great  effort  of  the 
imagination  to  enable  us  to  see  that  proposal  with 
German  eyes.  Were  I  a  German  I  should  say, 
*' These  islanders  are  cool  customers.  They  have 
fenced  in  all  the  best  parts  of  the  globe,  they  have 
bought  or  captured  fortresses  and  ports  in  five  con- 
tinents, they  have  gained  the  lead  in  commerce 
they  have  a  virtual  monopoly  of  the  carrying  trade 
of  the  world,  they  hold  command  of  the  seas,  and 
now  they  propose  that  we  shall  all  be  brothers,  and 
that  nobody  shall  fight  or  steal  any  more. 

We  are  therefore  at  an  impasse,  or  rather  at  a 
mere  battle  of  purses:  both  sides  must  go  on 
building — if  necessary,  to  the  limit  of  their  national 
resources. 

But  has  this  no  danger? 

We,  all  of  us.  Big  Navy  men  and  brittle  Navy 
men  alike,  know  that  it  has  very  grave  danger. 
There  is  first  the  danger  arising  from  that  human 
nature    to    which    the    war    advocates    are    so 

*  Britain  at  Bay. 

'  Germany  and  England,  p.  13. 


''p 


4 


I  • 


340 


The  Great  Illusion 


fond  of  appealing.    An  acute  American  observer* 
writes: 

Talk  of  war,  however  causeless,  tends  to  beget 
war.  Familiarize  two  nations  with  the  daily  thought 
of  fighting,  and  it  will  be  a  miracle  if  they  fail  to 
fight.  Let  them  occupy  themselves  daily  for  two 
or  three  years  with  discussing,  even  when  utterly 
denying  the  possibility  of  the  thing,  and  that  thing 
becomes  more  possible.  Discuss  causes  of  war,  deny 
that  they  exist,  and  you  provoke  them.  I  mean  to 
say  that  it  is  of  no  consequence  that  you  are  all 
the  time  protesting  that  war  is  impossible;  you  are 
all  the  time  talking  of  it.  It  does  not  matter  what 
is  said  on  a  subject ;  the  matter  is  that  the  subject  is 
kept  constantly  in  mind.  It  becomes  an  obsession. 
A  subconscious  process  is  set  up  tending  to  a  con- 
clusion with  which  rational  thought  has  nothing  to 
do.  Every  incident  takes  on  special  significance. 
Events  are  scrutinized  with  a  purpose  which,  though 
unconscious,  becomes  fixed.  Everybody  is  uncon- 
sciously on  the  look-out  for  an  offence.  .  .  .  The 
national  mind  is  prepared  for  an  emotional  crisis 
which  any  trivial  incident  may  release,  for  a  national 
*' brain  storm"  in  the  passion  of  which  the  murderous 
deed  will  be  swiftly  done.  There  is  nothing  far- 
fetched nor  fanciful  in  this;  it  is  precisely  what  most 
often  happens  with  nations.  ...  At  the  Aldershot 
practice  manoeuvres  this  year  the  combatants 
referred  to  each  other  as  "the  Germans."  "Isn't 
that  rather  an  ill-considered  custom?"  an  officer  was 

«  Dr.  Bayard  Hale  in  World's  Work,  Feb.,  1910. 


Not  Alone  Armament 


341 


asked.  "Isn't  it  calculated  to  encourage  hatred 
and  stir  up  bad  blood?"  "I  don't  know  as  to 
that,"  he  replied,  "but  it  certainly  is  calculated  to 
get  the  keenest  sort  of  work  out  of  them.  They  're 
lazy  beggars  unless  we  set  'em  on  the  Germans ;  then 
you  should  see  them." 

I  do  not  want  to  labour  the  importance  of  this, 
but  it  is  there,  and  has  to  be  reckoned  with.  But 
there  is  a  much  more  serious  point. 

To  Englishmen  it  seems  ridiculous,  of  course, 
that  the  Germans  should  think  England  has  any 
intention  of  attacking  them.  But  then,  most 
Germans  think  it  just  as  ridiculous  that  EngHsh- 
men  should  think  that  Germans  have  any  inten- 
tion of  attacking  them.  Putting  ourselves  for  a 
moment  in  their  [i.e.,  the  Germans]  place,  does  not 
the  present  English  attitude  justify  a  certain 
suspicion  in  the  minds  of  Germans? 

A  few  years  ago  the  Germans  were  in  a  position 
of  manifest  inferiority;  in  that  which  relates  to 
world  policy  they  were  absolutely  at  England's 
mercy.  As  one  German  public  man  said,  "Our 
ships  sailed  the  seas  on  sufferance."  Even  the 
Spectator  some  ten  years  ago  pointed  out  the 
hopeless  position  that  Germany  woidd  occupy  in 
any  conflict  with  England.  From  an  article 
published  in  that  journal,  January  16,  1897, 1  take 
the  following: 


342 


The  Great  Illusion 


Not  Alone  Armament 


343 


'  i 


i 


Let  us  consider  quietly  and  without-   heat   what 
would  have  happened  had  the  State  [England]  .  .  . 
tried  the  experiment  of  war  with  (?Termany  this  time 
last  year.  .  .  .  Our  fleet  is  much  stronger  than  the 
German  fleet,  so  much  stronger,  indeed,  that  the 
Germans  would  not  have  risked  its  destruction,  but 
would  have  kept  it  safely  in  port.     The  German 
Navy  is  a  good  one,  and  its  sailors  and  officers  are 
brave  men,  but  even  they  do  not  consider  that  it 
would  be  possible  to  beat  our  ships  when  outnumbered 
three  to  one.  .  .  .  We  may  take  it,  then,  that  the 
Germans,  having  no  need  to  show  their  courage  in  a 
hopeless  engagement,  would  have  kept  their  fleet  in 
port.     What  would  have  been  the  result  of  such  an 
action?     In  the  first  place,   such  German  ships  of 
war  as  are  to  be  found  in  the  Pacific  or  on  the  African 
coasts  would  have  been  either  sunk  or  captured.  .  .  . 
The  next  result  would' have  been  that  an  expedition 
despatched  from   India  or   Mauritius  would   have 
seized    German    East   Africa,    one    from   the    Cape 
Angra  Pequena  and  Damaraland,  one  from  England 
the  Cameroons,  and  one  from  Australia  German  New 
Guinea.     But,  it  may  be  said,  so  far  Germany  would 
have  suffered  very  little.     No  doubt,  but  this  is  by 
no  means  all  the  harm  we  could  have  inflicted  on 
Germany.  .  .  ,  Germany   has   a   mercantile   marine 
of  vast  proportions.     The  German  flag  is  everywhere. 
But  on  the  declaration  of  war  the  whole  of  Germany's 
trading  ships  would  be  at  our  mercy.    Throughout 
the  seas  of  the  world  our  cruisers  would  seize  and  con- 
fiscate German  ships.     Within  the  first  week  of  the 
declaration  of  war  Germany  would  have  suffered  a 
loss  of  many  million  pounds  by  the  capture  of  her 


ships.     Nor  is  that  all.     Otir  Colonies  are  dotted 
with  German  trading-houses,  which,  in  spite  of  a  keen 
competition,  do  a  great  deal  of  business.  .  .  .  We 
should  not,  of  course,  want  to  treat  them  harshly, 
but  war  must  mean  for  them  the  selling  of  their 
businesses  for  what  they  would  fetch  and  going  home 
to  Germany.     In  this  way  Germany  would  lose  a 
hold  upon  the  trade  of  the  world  which  it  has  taken 
her  many  years  of  toil  to  create.     Think,  too,  of  what 
Germany  has  spent  upon  subsidized  steamship  lines 
like  the  North  German  Lloyd.    War  with  England 
must  mean  the  utter  ruin  of  this  great  carrying  cor- 
poration.    Again,  think  of  the  effect  upon  Germany's 
trade  of  the  closing  of  all  her  ports.     Hamburg  is 
one  of  the  greatest  ports  of  the  world.     What  would 
be  its  condition  if  practically  not  a  single  ship  could 
leave  or  enter  it?    Blockades  are  no   doubt  very 
difficult  things  to  maintain  strictly,  but  Hamburg  is 
so  placed  that  the  operation  wo\ild  be  comparatively 
easy.     In  truth  the  blockade  of  all  the  German  ports 
on  the  Baltic  or  the  North  Sea  would  present  little 
difficulty.  .  .  .  Consider  the  effect  on  Germany  if 
her  flag  were  swept  from  the  high  seas  and  her  ports 
blockaded.     She  might  not  miss  her  colonies,   for 
they  are  only  a  burden,  but  the  loss  of  her  sea-borne 
trade  would  be  an  equivalent  to  an  immediate  fine  of 
at  least  a  hundred  million  sterling.     In  plain  words, 
a  war  with  Germany,  even  when  conducted  by  her, 
with  the  utmost  wisdom  and  prudence  must  mean 
for  her  a  direct  loss  of  a  terribly  heavy  kind,  and  for 
us  virtually  no  loss  at  all.' 

» This  article  was  written  in  reply  to  a  German  allegation  of 
our  helplessness.    But  that  does  not  alter  the  facts. 


344 


The  Great  Illusion 


Not  Alone  Armament 


345 


I 


' 


This,  an  it  please  you,  is  not  from  some 
pamphlet  of  the  German  Navy  League,  but  from  the 
organ  which  is  now  apt  to  resent  the  increased  Ger- 
man Navy  as  implying  aggression  upon  England ! 

Supposing  that  in  the  foregoing  the  r61es  were 
reversed,  and  the  passages  were  to  be  read  by  an 
Englishman  in  a  German  paper.     Is  there  a  single 
Englishman    animated    by    the    axioms    of   our 
present-day  statecraft  who  would  not  say  that  it 
was  his  country's  first  duty  to  alter  so  humiliating 
and  so  intolerable  a  situation  by  an  increase  of 
naval  armament?    Very  well,  Germans  have  done 
it,  and  are  doing  it,  and  what  is  the  result?    That 
our  great  popular  papers  represent  this  fact  as  an 
aggression  upon  England.     Is  there  not  at  least 
some  justification   for   the  view  held   by   some 
parties  in  Germany  that  Englishmen  demand  the 
overpowering  predominance  of  the  British  Navy, 
not  for  purposes  of  defence,  but  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  Germany  in  perpetual  tutelage,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  continuing  to  beat  her  in  those 
diplomatic  world  battles  which  take  place  without 
the  actual  exercise  of  force,  but  with  only  the 
threat  of  force,  about  which  Admiral  Mahan  has 
written  in  the  passage  that  I  have  quoted?    Take 
the  foregoing  passage  from  the  Spectator,  showing 
the  utter  helplessness  of  Germany  ten  years  ago, 
together  with  the  sort  of  boast  which,  like  the  fol- 
lowing, one  may  find  in  at  least  some  English 
papers: 


Thanks  to  the  Navy  we  are  the  most  hardened 
invaders  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Take  a  single 
British  regiment  at  random,  the  50th  Queen's  Own. 
Its  records  show  that  during  the  period  of  only  130 
years  it  has  fought  in  Canada,  Germany,  Corsica, 
Egypt,  Denmark,  Spain,  France,  Holland,  India, 
Russia,  and  New  Zealand.     Pretty  well,  is  it  not? 

The  British  Army  has  fought  in  every  land,  from 
China  to  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  from  the  Hima- 
layas to  the  Cape  and  New  Zealand.  The  only 
service  that  the  British  Army  has  never  been  called 
on  to  render  is  the  defence  of  England  against 
invasion.' 

Speaking  in  practical  terms,  there  is  not  an 
Englishman  living  who  would  have  accepted  the 
situation  in  which  Germany  found  herself  ten 
years  ago,  yet  immediately  Germany  proceeds  to 
alter  it  we  get  accusations  of  a  violent  and  clam- 
orous order  that  Germany  is  bent  upon  aggression, 
and  an  agitation  which  the  Government  is  imable 
to  resist  for  maintaining  the  ratio  of  inequality 
between  the  power  of  the  two  States  at  somewhere 
near  what  it  was  ten  years  ago. 

The  result,  therefore,  is  this :  England  is  asking 
that  Germany  shall  accept  normally  a  position  of 
manifest  inferiority.  Is  she  likely  to?  Would 
Englishmen,  especially  if  they  had  the  larger 
population  and  the  prospective  amalgamation 
with  another  coimtry  (I  am  thinking  of  Austria) 

*  Referee. 


, 


I' 


i^ 


i! 


il' 


346 


The  Great  Illusion 


which  would  give  Englishmen  a  superiority  of 
two  to  one  in  numbers — even  if  we  include  the 
white  Colonies?  Again,  there  is  no  Englishman 
living  who,  in  the  terms  of  the  present  poUtical 
philosophy,  would  accept  such  a  solution. 

Why  then,  are  Englishmen  asking  it  of  Ger- 
many? 

But  the  fact  of  England's  insistence  on  this 
solution  carries  with  it  a  still  graver  danger. 
Since  time  is  on  the  side  of  the  German  and  is 
against  England,  that  fact  places  the  advantage 
of  aggression  on  the  English  side.  Germans  who 
discuss  this  matter  thoroughly  realize  the  fact. 
In  the  February  number  of  the  Deutsche  Revue 
for  the  present  year,  Professor  Bernard  Harms,  of 
Kiel  University,  in  deriding  the  idea  that  Ger- 
many is  preparing  a  surprise  attack  on  England, 
disposes  of  such  an  accusation  by  pointing  out 
that  Germans  are  winning  the  war  of  peace  com- 
petition so  unmistakably,  that  it  would  be  folly 
for  them  to  translate  the  struggle  from  the  arena 
of  Germany's  attested  superiority  to  an  arena 
where  the  conflict  must,  at  any  rate,  be  doubtful. 
He  urges  that  England,  on  the  other  hand,  is  far 
more  likely  to  break  the  peace  as  soon  as  she  finds 
her  economic  rival  to  be  striding  past  her  in  trade. 
He  urges  that  the  past  history  of  British  rivalry 
with  the  maritime  Powers  of  the  Continent  all 
tends  to  estabHsh  the  same  theory.  The  Profes- 
sor concludes  with  this  advice  to  his  countrymen; 


Not  Alone  Armament 


347 


"Germany  should  seek  to  establish  the  same  state 
of  peace  as  the  United  States  has  succeeded  in 
imposing.  There  has  been  no  war  between  the 
two  countries  because  the  British  have  feared 
America,  have  believed  that  they  could  not  hold 
Canada  except  by  American  forbearance  and 
have  no  desire  to  quarrel  with  the  great  Republic 
imder  any  circumstances.** 

The  view  of  Professor  Harms  finds  confirmation 
in  that  expressed  by  Professor  Delbruck  in  the 
article  from  which  I  have  already  quoted.' 
Professor  Delbruck  says : 

The  English  population  is  disturbed  by  German 
industrial  progress  .  .  .  English  industry  is  being 
pressed  on  all  sides  by  German  competition.  From 
these  facts  the  feeling  has  arisen  in  England  that  it 
is  not  desirable  to  wait  imtil  her  maritime  as  well  as 
her  industrial  supremacy  is  lost,  but  that  while  she 
is  still  mistress  of  the  seas  and  is  in  alliance  with 
France  the  opporttmity  should  be  taken  to  suppress 
Germany. 

Do  we,  on  the  English  side,  find  any  confirma- 
tion of  the  foregoing  suspicion?  Unfortunately, 
we  find  a  great  deal.  Sir  Edmtmd  C.  Cox  writes 
in  the  premier  English  review,  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  for  April,  191  o: 

Is  there  an  alternative  to  this  endless  yet  futile 
competition  in  shipbuilding?    Yes,  there  is.     It  is  one 

*  Contemporary  Review^  Oct.,  1909. 


348 


The  Great  Illusion 


Not  Alone  Armament 


349 


IH'.V  I 


which  a  Cromwell,  a  William  Pitt,  a  Palmerston,  a 
Disraeli,  would  have  adopted  long  ago.  This  is  that 
alternative — the  only  possible  ct^nclusion.  It  is  to 
say  to  Germany:  **A11  that  you  have  been  doing 
constitutes  a  series  of  unfriendly  acts.  Your  fair 
words  go  for  nothing.  Once  for  all,  you  must  put 
an  end  to  your  warlike  preparations.  If  we  are  not 
satisfied  that  you  do  so  we  shall  forthwith  sink  every 
battleship  and  cruiser  which  you  possess.  The 
situation  which  you  have  created  is  intolerable.  If 
you  determine  to  fight  us,  if  you  insist  upon  war,  war 
you  shall  have;  but  the  time  shall  be  of  our  choosing 
and  not  of  yours,  and  that  time  shall  be  now." 

Even  Professor  Wilkinson  admits  that  a  party 
in  favour  of  the  policy  outlined  by  Sir  E.  C.  Cox 
does  exist. '  The  American  observer,  Dr.  Hale, 
whom  I  have  already  quoted,  carries  away  the 
same  impression.    He  says^: 

The  inmiediate  dangers  of  the  situation  are  pri- 
marily from  the  EngHsh  side,  and  may  be  scientifically 
stated  as  consisting  in  .  .  .  the  more  rational  realiza- 
tion by  a  deteriorating  people  of  the  necessity  of  an 
early  and  swift  effort  to  regain  a  prestige  which  is 
slipping  from  them.  .  .  .  England  does  not  in  its 
heart  of  hearts  believe  its  own  talk  of  Germany's 
warlike  intentions,  but  it  shivers  with  awakening 
consciousness  of  its  own  ...  for  an  immense  advant- 
age will  lie  with  the  Power  which  laimches  the  first 
blow.    It  is  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  that  multiplies 

^  Britain  at  Bay,  p.  loi. 
'World's  Work,  Feb.,  1910. 


many  times  the  likelihood  of  hostilities;  mutual  sus- 
picion, which  cannot  afford  to  await  verification, 
will  urge  to  prior  action.  England  and  Germany 
will  each  be  impelled  to  strife,  even  without  cause,  by 
the  conviction  that  the  other  is  preparing  to  strike. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing,  can  anyone  honestly 
say  that  the  sheer  savage  bulldog  piling  up  of  the 
machinery  of  war  carries  no  danger?  Is  it  not, 
on  the  contrary,  fvdl  of  danger.^ 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  war  advocate  who 
flings  so  readily  at  the  head  of  the  pacifist  the 
charge  of  ignoring  htmian  natvire  does  so  himself 
habitually;  he  expects  other  people  to  be  guided 
by  a  motive  which  he  wotdd  never  allow  to  affect 
his  own  conduct.  He  knows  perfectly  well  that 
if  he  were  a  German,  in  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  he  would  not  surrender  the  contest  merely 
because  of  the  tenacity  of  the  opposing  nation; 
yet  he  expects  the  German  to  do  what  he  would 
never  do.  Even  Admiral  Fisher,  whom  I  do  not 
place  among  the  Jingoes,  can  speak  as  follows': 

I  am  not  for  war,  I  am  for  peace.  That  is  why  I 
am  for  a  supreme  Navy.  Did  I  not  write  in  your 
autograph  book  at  The  Hague:  "The  supremacy 
of  the  British  Navy  is  the  best  security  for  the  peace 
of  the  world"?  My  sole  object  is  peace.  What  you 
call  my  truculence  is  all  for  peace.  If  you  rub  it  in 
both  at  home  and  abroad  that  you  are  ready  for 

'  Review  of  Reviews,  Feb.,  1910. 


350 


The  Great  Illusion 


Not  Alone  Armament 


351 


instant  war  with  every  tinit  of  your  strength  in  the 
first  line  and  waiting  to  be  first  in,  and  hit  your  enemy 
in  the  belly  and  kick  him  when  he  is  down,  and  boil 
your  prisoners  in  oil  (if  you  take  any) ,  and  torture  his 
women  and  children,  then  people  will  keep  clear  of 
you. 

Well,  the  foregoing  is  simply  not  true.  All  the 
evidence  that  I  have  just  quoted  shows  that  it  is 
especially  pernicious  when  applied  to  the  solution 
of  our  present  difficulty.  Would  Admiral  Fisher 
refrain  from  taking  a  given  line  merely  becatise, 
if  he  took  it,  someone  would  **hit  him  in  the 
belly,"  etc.?  He  wotdd  repudiate  the  idea  with 
the  utmost  scorn,  and  probably  reply  that  the 
threat  would  give  him  an  added  incentive  to 
take  the  line  in  question.  But  why  should  Admiral 
Fisher  suppose  that  he  has  a  monopoly  of  courage, 
and  that  a  German  Admiral  would  act  otherwise 
than  he?  Is  it  not  about  time  that  we  abandoned 
the  somewhat  childish  asstunption  that  otir  own 
nation  has  a  monopoly  of  the  courage  and  the 
persistence  in  the  world,  and  that  things  which 
would  never  frighten  or  deter  us  will  frighten  or 
deter  our  rivals? 

Si  vis  pacem,  para  bellum  may  have  been  true 
of  a  State  which  represented  to  some  extent  an 
oasis  of  civilization  in  a  desert  of  savagery,  but 
that  does  not  represent  the  situation  of  Great 
Britain.  The  outside  world  is  not  just  one 
welter  of  savagery;  the  outside  world  with  which 


we  have  to  deal  is  made  up  of  men  and  women 
very  much  like  ourselves,  and  with  qualities, 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  very  much  like  ovir 
own. 

We  arrive,  then,  at  this  result :  that  any  agree- 
ment for  the  limitation  of  armaments  is  impossible, 
because,  in  the  opinion  of  both  parties  to  the 
discussion,  each  is  asking  of  the  other  a  situation 
which  that  other  will  not  accept ;  the  Englishman 
is  asking  the  German  to  accept  a  stereotyped 
inferiority  (which  the  German  will  not  accept), 
the  German  is  asking  the  Englishman  to  accept 
an  equality  of  power  (which  the  Englishman  will 
not  accept).  The  second  solution  is  the  con- 
tinance  of  the  blind  bulldog  piling  up  of  arma- 
ments on  both  sides  to  the  limit  of  the  resoiu-ces 
in  each  case — a  solution  which  carries  with  it 
the  very  evident  danger  which  we  have  just  seen, 
and  which,  if  unchecked,  will  lead  with  every 
probability  to  war.  The  third  solution  is  for  one 
side  to  stop  its  increase  of  armaments  and  wait 
on  the  action  of  the  other,  a  solution  which,  for  the 
very  reasons  that  render  the  other  two  impracti- 
cable, cannot  be  looked  for.     What,  then,  remains? 

Before  coming  to  any  method,  a  very  common 
confusion  that  bears  on  this  subject  has  to  be 
considered. 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression    35 


1 
J 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  RELATION  OF  DEFENCE  TO  AGGRESSION 

Root  of  the  whole  problem  is  the  force  of  the  motive  for  aggres- 
sion— ^Without  such  motive  the  necessity  for  defence  dis- 
appears— Simultaneity  of  progress  towards  rationalism  on 
both  sides  of  the  fence. 

IN  the  first  part  of  this  book  I  have  urged  that 
at  the  root  of  the  whole  armament  difficulty 
lies  the  theory  that  economic  advantage  goes  with 
the  exercise  of  mihtary  force,  that,  in  other  words, 
armaments  exist  as  the  logical  outcome  of  that 
illusion  with  which  this  book  deals. 

To  this  certain  of  my  critics  have  replied  that  I 
have  overlooked  the  fact  that  arms  are  for  defence 
and  not  for  aggression!  Even  the  most  respon- 
sible take  this  sapient  view.  But  what  creates 
the  necessity  for  defence?  Surely  the  probability 
of  aggression.  And  what  creates  the  probability 
of  aggression ?  Equally  siu-ely  it  is  the  assumption 
that  there  is  some  advantage  in  aggression.  Is 
it  necessary  to  urge  that  in  the  last  analysis  the 
determining  factor  of  the  whole  armament  problem 
is  the  force  of  the  motive  for  aggression? 

Infantile  as  it  may  sound,  it  evidently  is  neces- 
sary, in  view  of  much  of  the  criticism  which  the 

352 


first  edition  of  this  book  provoked,  to  dwell  upon 
the  relations  of  defence  to  aggression.  The  pur- 
pose of  armaments  is  either  to  repel  attack  or  to 
achieve  some  advantage  by  making  it,  and  in  a 
practical  world  the  likeUhood  of  attack  is  mainly 
determined  (i)  by  the  advantage  which  would 
accrue  from  success,  and  (2)  by  the  probability  of 
success.  Both  elements  are  essential.  If  it  be 
demonstrated  that  no  possible  advantage  can  be 
obtained  by  a  successful  attack,  no  one  will  make 
that  attack.  We  do  not  build  forts  at  the  North 
Pole.  Some  years  ago  the  bank  in  a  Western 
mining  town  was  frequently  subjected  to  "hold 
ups,"  because  it  was  known  that  the  great  mining 
company  owning  the  town  kept  large  quantities 
of  gold  there  for  the  payment  of  its  workmen. 
The  company,  therefore,  took  to  paying  its  wages 
mainly  by  cheque  on  a  San  Francisco  bank,  and 
by  a  simple  system  of  clearances  practically 
abolished  the  use  of  gold  in  considerable  quanti- 
ties in  the  mining  town  in  question.  The  bank 
was  never  attacked  again. 

Now,  the  demonstration  that  gold  had  been 
replaced  by  books  in  that  bank  was  as  much  a 
work  of  defence  as  though  the  bank  had  spent 
tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  in  constructing  forts 
and  earthworks,  and  moimting  Gatling  guns 
around  the  town.  Of  the  two  methods  of  defence, 
that  of  substituting  cheques  for  gold  was  infinitely 
cheaper  and  more  effective. 


354 


The  Great  Illusion 


The  last  forty  or  fifty  years  of  credit  develop- 
ment in  Europe  has  done  for  the  States  of  Europe 
what  the  managers  did  for  that  bank.  Seizable 
wealth  has  been  replaced  by  unseizable  credit 
entries.  And  when  all  that  this  fact  involves 
becomes  thoroughly  reahzed,  tliere  will  be  as  little 
need  for  Europe's  elaborate  defence  as  there  was 
for  any  elaborate  defence  of  the  Western  bank 
when  the  cheque  system  was  introduced. 

Yet  in  the  face  of  this  we  are  gravely  told  that 
the  principle  developed  in  this  book,  while  it 
may  be  true,  does  not  affect  the  question,  because 
arms  are  for  defence !  No  less  an  authority  than 
the  London  Times,  discussing  the  first  edition  of 
this  book,  gravely  reproves  thus: 

No  doubt  the  victor  suffers,  but  who  suffers  most, 
he  or  the  vanquished  ? 

So  that  the  Times  would  seriously  tirge  that, 
although  it  became  evident  to  every  diplomat  in 
Europe  that  no  advantage  were  to  be  gained  by 
conquest  or  superior  military  power,  the  tension 
would  be  just  as  great  as  it  is  when  statecraft  is 
founded  on  the  assiunption  that  the  only  card 
worth  playing  is  miUtary  power.  The  Times 
apparently  assumes  that  a  nation  will  go  to  war, 
not  for  the  attainment  of  any  advantage,  but 
from  the  sheer  imselfish  delight  of  inflicting 
grievous  damage  on  others,  although  the  nation 
itself  is  damaged  in  the  process.     Does  this  really 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression    355 

constitute  a  motive?  Is  Europe  really  going  to 
maintain  this  incalculable  burden  of  armament 
in  order  that  each  nation  may  inflict  on  itself  all 
the  horrors  of  war,  not  for  any  advantage  that  it 
can  gain,  but  merely  that  some  imknown  adversary 
— because,  as  we  have  seen,  our  adversaries  are 
seldom  the  same  for  ten  years  running,  and  no 
nation  knows  which  its  next  adversary  will  be — 
may  suffer  more  than  it  suffers  itself?  Is  such 
a  thing  true  of  human  nature?  Is  there  any- 
thing in  human  history  to  justify  it?  Vengeance; 
yes.  But  vengeance  impUes  some  injury  done  in 
the  past,  which  injury  was  the  result  of  an  attack 
delivered  for  some  motive.  Pride  also  one  can 
admit,  but  that  element  we  have  just  investigated, 
and  State  conflicts  become  every  day  more  futile 
for  its  satisfaction.  Even  putting  out  of  mind 
the  material,  and  assuming  only  sentimental  or 
temperamental  motive,  the  plea  of  the  various 
parties  to  the  case  that  their  armaments  are 
justified,  not  for  purposes  of  aggression,  but  by 
the  necessities  of  defence,  remains  just  as  self- 
stultifying.  If  each  repudiates  any  intention  of 
attack,  and  is  sincere  in  that  repudiation,  the 
necessity  for  defence  falls  to  the  ground. 

The  investigation  elaborated  in  the  two  pre- 
ceding parts  of  this  book  concerns  itself  quite  as 
much  with  the  temperamental  or  sentimental 
motives  for  aggression  as  with  the  material,  and 
shows  that  factors  which  are  closely  allied  to  those 


35^ 


The  Great  Illusion 


I 


operative  in  the  economic  domain  are  coming 
more  and  more  to  render  military  conflict  between 
States  as  ineffectual  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 
psychological  as  the  material  motive.     It  is  quite 
true  that  the  thesis  so  elaborated  only  concerns 
itself  with  the  motives  for  aggression,  and  I  did 
not  think  it  necessary  in  the  first  edition  of  this 
book  to  point   out  that  just  to   the  degree  to 
which  the  motive  for  aggression  is  attenuated,  the 
necessity  for  defence  is  relaxed  in  an  exactly  corre- 
sponding degree.     And  if  there  are  any  who  would 
reprove   me   for  indulging  in   platitudes   of   the 
character  just  enlarged  on,  I  wish  I  had  the  space 
to  quote  some  of  the  criticisms  which  the  first 
edition  of  this  book  evoked! 

Of  a  like  character  to  the  remark  of  the  Times 
is  the  criticism  of  the  Spectator  as  follows: 

Mr.  Angeirs  main  point  is  that  the  advantages 
customarily  associated  with  national  independence 
and  security  have  no  existence  outside  the  popular 
imagination.  ...  He  holds  that  Englishmen  would 
be  equally  happy  if  they  were  under  German  rule, 
and  that  Germans  would  be  equally  happy  if  they 
were  imder  English  rule.     It  is  irrational,  therefore, 
to  take  any  measures  for  perpetuating  the  existing 
European  order,  since  only  a  sentimentalist  can  set 
any    value    on    its   maintenance.  .  .  .  Probably   in 
private  life  Mr.  Angell  is  less  consistent  and  less 
inclined  to  preach  the  burglar's  gospel  that  to  the 
wise  man  meum  smd  tuum  are  but  two  names  for  the 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression    357 

same  thing.  If  he  is  anxious  to  make  converts,  he 
will  do  well  to  apply  his  reasoning  to  subjects  that 
come  nearer  home,  and  convince  the  average  man 
that  marriage  and  private  property  are  as  much 
illusions  as  patriotism.  If  sentiment  is  to  be  banished 
from  politics,  it  cannot  reasonably  be  retained  in 
morals. 

As  the  reply  to  this  somewhat  extraordinary 
criticism  is  directly  germane  to  what  it  is  important 
to  make  clear,  I  may,  perhaps,  be  excused  for 
reproducing  my  letter  to  the  Spectator,  which 
was  in  part  as  follows: 

How  far  the  foregoing  is  a  correct  description  of  the 
scope  and  character  of  the  book  under  review  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  statement  of  fact.  My 
pamphlet  does  not  attack  the  sentiment  of  patriotism 
(unless  a  criticism  of  the  duellist's  conception  of 
dignity  be  considered  as  such);  it  simply  does  not 
deal  with  it,  as  being  outside  the  limits  of  the  main 
thesis.  I  do  not  hold,  and  there  is  not  one  line  to 
which  your  reviewer  can  point  as  justifying  such  a 
conclusion,  that  Englishmen  would  be  equally  happy 
if  they  were  under  German  rule.  I  do  not  conclude 
that  it  is  irrational  to  take  measures  for  perpetuating 
the  existing  European  order.  I  do  not  "expose  the 
folly  of  self-defence  in  nations."  I  do  not  object  to 
spending  money  on  armaments  at  this  juncture. 
On  the  contrary,  I  am  particularly  emphatic  in 
declaring  that  while  the  present  philosophy  is  what 
it  is,  we  are  bound  to  maintain  our  relative  position 
with  other  Powers.     I  admit  that  as  long  as  there  is 


%  ]  j;; 


35S 


The  Great  Illusion 


danger,  as  I  believe  there  is,  from  German  aggression, 
we  must  ann.  I  do  not  preach  a  burglar's  gospel, 
that  meum  and  tuum  are  the  same  thing,  and  the  whole 
tendency  of  my  book  is  the  exact  reverse:  it  is  to 
show  that  the  burglar's  gospel — which  is  the  gospel 
of  statecraft  as  it  now  stands — ^is  no  longer  possible 
among  nations,  and  that  the  difference  between  meum 
and  tuum  must  necessarily,  as  society  gains  in  com- 
plication, be  given  a  stricter  observance  than  it  has 
ever  heretofore  been  given  in  history.  I  do  not  urge 
that  sentiment  should  be  banished  from  politics,  if 
by  sentiment  is  meant  the  common  morality  that 
guides  us  in  our  treatment  of  marriage  and  of  private 
property.  The  whole  tone  of  my  book  is  to  urge 
with  all  possible  emphasis  the  exact  reverse  of  such 
a  doctrine ;  to  urge  that  the  morality  which  has  been 
by  our  necessities  developed  in  the  society  of  individ- 
uals must  also  be  applied  to  the  society  of  nations 
as  that  society  becomes  by  virtue  of  our  development 
more  interdependent. 

I  have  only  taken  a  small  portion  of  your  reviewer's 
article  (which  runs  to  a  whole  page),  and  I  do  not 
think  I  am  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  nearly  all 
of  it  is  as  untrue  and  as  much  a  distortion  of  what 
I  really  say  as  the  passage  from  which  I  have  quoted. 
What  I  do  attempt  to  make  plain  is  that  the  necessity 
for  defence  measures  (which  I  completely  recognize 
and  emphatically  counsel),  implies  on  the  part  of 
someone  a  motive  for  aggression,  and  that  the  mo- 
tive arises  from  the  (at  present)  universal  belief  in 
the  economic  advantages  accruing  from  successful 
conquest. 

I   challenged  this  universal  axiom  of  statecraft, 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression     359 

and  attempted  to  show  that  the  mechanical  develop- 
ment of  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  especially  in  the 
means  of  communication,  had  given  rise  to  certain 
economic  phenomena — of  which  re-acting  bourses 
and  a  synchronized  bank-rate  the  world  over  are 
perhaps  the  most  characteristic — ^which  render  modern 
wealth  and  trade  intangible  in  the  sense  that  they 
cannot  be  seized  or  interfered  with  to  the  advantage 
of  a  military  aggressor,  the  moral  being,  not  that  self- 
defence  is  out  of  date,  but  that  aggression  is,  and  that 
when  aggression  ceases,  self-defence  will  be  no  longer 
necessary.     I  urged,  therefore,  that  in  these  little- 
recognized  truths  might  possibly  be  found  a  way  out 
of  the  armament  impasse;  that  if  the  accepted  motive 
for  aggression  could  be  shown  to  have  no  solid  basis, 
the  tension  in  Europe  would  be  immensely  relieved, 
and  the  risk  of  attack  become  immeasurably  less  by 
reason  of  the  slackening  of  the  motive  for  aggression. 
I  asked  whether  this  series  of  economic  facts — so 
little  realized  by  the  average  politician  in  Europe,  and 
yet  so  familiar  to  at  least  a  few  of  the  ablest  financiers 
— did  not  go  far  to  change  the  axioms  of  statecraft, 
and  I  urged  reconsideration  of  such  in  the  light  of 

these  facts. 

Your  reviewer,  instead  of  dealing  with  the  questions 
thus  raised,  accuses  me  of  "attacking  patriotism,"  of 
arguing  that  "Englishmen  would  be  equally  happy 
under  German  rule,"  and  much  nonsense  of  the  same 
sort,  for  which  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  justification. 
Is  this  serious  criticism?   Is  it  worthy  of  the  Spectator  ? 

To  the  foregoing  letter  the  Spectator  critic  rejoins 
as  follows: 


ll 


\ 


360 


The  Great  Illusion 


If  Mr.  Angell's  book  had  given  me  the  same  impres- 
sion as  that  which  I  gain  from  his  letter,  I  should 
have  reviewed  it  in  a  different  spirit.  I  can  only 
plead  that  I  wrote  under  the  impression  which  the 
book  actually  made  on  me.  In  reply  to  his  "state- 
ment of  fact,*'  I  must  ask  your  leave  to  make  the 
following  corrections:  (i)  Instead  of  saying  that, 
on  Mr.  Angell's  showing,  Englishmen  would  be 
"equally  happy"  under  German  rule,  I  ought  to  have 
said  that  they  would  be  equally  well  off.  But  on 
his  doctrine  that  material  well-being  is  "the  very 
highest"  aim  of  a  politician,  the  two  terms  seem  to 
me  interchangeable.  (2)  The  "existing  European 
order"  rests  on  supposed  economic  value  of  polit- 
ical force.  In  opposition  to  this  Mr.  Angell  main- 
tains "the  economic  futility  of  political  force." 
To  take  measures  for  perpetuating  an  order  founded 
on  a  futility  does  seem  to  me  "irrational."  (3)  I 
never  said  that  Mr.  Angell  objects  to  spending  money 
on  armaments  "while  the  present  philosophy  is 
what  it  is."  (4)  The  stress  laid  in  the  book  on  the 
economic  folly  of  patriotism,  as  commonly  under- 
stood, does  seem  to  me  to  suggest  that  "sentiment 
should  be  banished  from  politics."  But  I  admit  that 
this  was  only  an  inference,  though,  as  I  still  think,  a 
fair  inference.  (5)  I  apologize  for  the  words  "the 
burglar's  gospel."  They  have  the  fa\ilt  incident  to 
rhetorical  phrases  of  being  more  telling  than  exact. 

This  rejoinder,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  still  reveals 
the  confusion  which  prompted  the  first  criticism. 
Because  I  urged  that  Germany  could  do  us 
relatively  little  harm,  since  the  harm  which  she 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression     361 

inflicted  on  us  would  immediately  react  on  Ger- 
man prosperity,  my  critic  assumes  that  this  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  Englishmen  would  be 
as  happy  or  as  prosperous  under  German  rule. 
He  quite  overlooks  the  fact  that  if  Germans  are 
convinced  that  they  will  obtain  no  benefit  by  our 
conquest  they  will  not  attempt  that  conquest,  and 
there  will  be  no  question  of  our  living  under 
German  rule  either  less  or  more  happily  or  pros- 
perously.   As  to  the  critic's  second  point,  I  have 
expressly    explained    that    not    our   rival's    real 
interest  but  what  he  deems  to  be  his  real  interest 
must  be  the  guide  to  our  conduct.     Military  force 
is  certainly  economically  futile,  but  so  long  as 
German  policy  rests  on  the  assumption  of  the 
supposed  economic  value  of  military  force,  we 
have  to  meet  that  force  by  the  only  force  that 
can  reply  to  it. 

Even  if  the  inferences  which  my  critic  draws 
were  true  ones,  which  for  the  most  part  they  are 
not,  he  still  overlooks  one  important  element.  If 
it  were  true  that  the  book  involves  the  "folly  of 
patriotism,"  how  is  that  in  any  way  relevant  to 
the  discussion,  since  I  also  urge  that  nations  are 
justified  in  protecting  even  their  follies  against 
the  attack  of  other  nations?  I  may  regard  the 
Christian  Scientists,  or  the  Seventh  Day  Advent- 
ists,  or  the  Spiritualists,  as  very  foolish  people, 
and  to  some  extent  mischievous  people;  but  were 
an  Act  of  Parliament  introduced  for  their  sup- 


36a 


The  Great  Illusion 


'  f  HI 


pression  by  physical  force,  I  should  resist  such 
an  act  with  all  the  energy  of  which  I  was  capable. 
In  what  way  are  the  two  attitudes  contradictory? 
It  is  the  attitude,  I  take  it,  of  educated  men  the 
world  over.  The  fact  has  no  importance,  and  it 
hardly  bears  on  this  subject,  but  I  regard  certain 
English  conceptions  of  life  bearing  on  matters  of 
law,  and  social  habit,  and  political  philosophy, 
as  infinitely  preferable  to  the  German,  and  if  I 
thought  that  such  conceptions  demanded  defence 
indefinitely  by  great  armaments  this  book  would 
never  have  been  written.  But  I  take  the  view 
that  the  idea  of  such  necessity  is  based  on  a  com- 
plete illusion,  not  only  because  as  a  matter  of 
present-day  fact,  and  even  in  the  present  state 
of  political  philosophy  Germany  has  not  the  least 
intention  of  going  to  war  with  us  to  change  our 
notions  in  law  or  literature,  art  or  social  organiza- 
tion, but  also  because  if  she  had  such  notion  it 
would  be  founded  upon  illusions  which  she  would 
be  bound  sooner  or  later  to  shed,  and  I  should 
regard  it  as  much  a  part  of  the  work  of  defence 
to  show  Germans  how  mischievous  and  futile 
their  desire  to  destroy  our  moral  property  was 
as  it  would  be  part  of  oiu-  defence  to  go  on  build- 
ing battleships  until  Germany  had  realized  that 
truth. 

A  great  part  of  the  misconception  just  dealt 
with  arises  from  a  hazily  conceived  fear  that  ideas 
like  those  embodied  in  this  book  may  attenuate 


Relation  of  Defence  to  Aggression    363 

our  energy  of  defence,  and  that  we  shall  be  in  a 
weaker  position  relatively  to  our  rivals  than  we 
were  before.  But  this  overlooks  the  fact  if  the 
progress  of  ideas  weakens  our  energies  of  defence, 
it  also  weakens  our  rival's  energy  of  attack,  and 
the  strength  of  our  relative  positions  is  just  what 
it  was  originally,  with  this  exception,  that  we 
have  taken  a  step  towards  peace  instead  of  a  step 
towards  war,  which  the  mere  piling  up  of  arma- 
ments unchecked  by  any  other  factor  must  in  the 
end  inevitably  lead  to. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  critics  like  those 
whom  I  have  just  quoted  feel  hazily  also,  that 
the  progress  of  ideas  which  may  weaken  our 
energy  of  defence  will  not  weaken  the  energy  of 
attack  on  the  part  of  our  rival  to  a  corresponding 
degree.  But  such  conclusion  ignores  all  history, 
as  certain  facts  already  touched  upon,  and  others 
detailed  in  the  next  chapter,  make  sufficiently 
plain. 


Methods 


365 


.'I 


im^ 


'i 


M 


im 


CHAPTER  III 

METHODS 

Can  we  look  for  a  general  realization  of  the  real  facts  of  inter- 
national relationship? — Journalistic  pessimism — And  vanity 
— How  ideas  have  moved  in  the  past — The  difficulties  of 
action  between  governments — Some  general  principles — 
Is  England  to  lead  the  way? 


D 


ISCUSSING  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  Sir 
Edward  Grey  said : 


When  I  read  that  book  I  was  reminded  of  the 
saying  of  a  great  thinker  many  years  ago  that  it  is 
not  things  which  matter  so  much,  but  people's  opinion 
about  things.  True  as  the  statement  in  that  book 
may  be,  it  does  not  become  an  operative  motive  in  the 
minds  and  conduct  of  nations  until  they  are  convinced 
of  its  truth  and  it  has  become  a  commonplace  to 
them.  * 

Sir  Edward  Grey  has  here  anticipated  an  objec- 
tion to  the  principles  I  have  just  elaborated,  which 
has  been  especially  emphasized  by  critics  more 
hostile  than  I  take  him  to  be. 

'Aixentine  Centenary  Banquet,  May  20,  1910. 

364 


From  the  first  appearance  of  the  pamphlet  on 
which  this  book  is  based,  at  the  end  of  1909,  to 
the  date  of  this  edition,  I  find  that  the  cutting 
agencies  have  sent   me  from  England  and  the 
United  States  something  over  five  himdred  articles. 
In  sheer  bulk,  therefore,  the  discussion  provoked 
in  the  English  language  Press  by  the  thesis  here 
presented  has  been  very  large,  nmning  in  some 
cases  to  whole  pages  of  important  newspapers. 
Yet  in  a  very  few  cases  only,  certainly  not  more 
than  six  at  the  most,  has  there  been  any  attempt 
at  direct  rebuttal  of  the  main  economic  principle 
— a  rebuttal  made,  that  is,  with  sufficient  detail 
and  definiteness  to  allow  of  discussion  of  any  kind/ 
Yet  the  thesis  is  controversial  enough  in  all  con- 
science; it  nms  full  tilt  at  the  very  fotmdations 
of  orthodox  statesmanship.     It  aims  at  the  very 
basic  dogma  upon  which  rest  all  our  diplomatic 
alliances  and  all  the  jugglery  of  the  chancelleries. 
Nevertheless,  for  the  most  part  its  definite  propo- 
sitions, in  the  midst  of  all  this  discussion,  simply 
remain  undiscussed. 

Now,  it  may  be  urged,  of  course,  that  the  thesis 
is  so  preposterous  as  to  be  self -condemned ;  thus 
the  silence  concerning  the  main  principle.  But 
in  that  case,  if  it  is  as  preposterous  as  all  that,  if 

» The  definite  points  in  each  of  the  criticisms  I  have  in  mind, 
those  of  the  Spectator,  the  Times,  the  Daily  Mail,  and  a  correspon- 
dent of  the  Economist  and  Public  Opinion,  have  all  been  dealt  with 
(see,  respectively,  pp.  67-8-9-70-1,  74-5.  295-6-7-8). 


I 


366 


The  Great  Illusion 


it  stands  self -condemned,  why  all  this  discussion? 
And  still  more  significantly,  if  its  foolishness  is 
so  evident  to  all  minds,  why  are  my  critics  at 
such  pains  to  prove  that  men  are  illogical  and 
uncontrolled  by  reason,  and  so  little  apt  to  guide 
their  conduct  by  wise  rules?  For  practically  all 
that  are  of  hostile  intent  (the  proportion  of  these 
has  been  very  much  smaller  than  I  had  dared  to 
think  possible)  base  their  opposition,  not  only  on 
the  plea  that,  though  the  facts  here  exposed  may  be 
true,  "the  German  Emperor  has  not  been  con- 
verted," or  that  Europe  generally  is  unregenerate, 
or  that  nations  are -still  very  ignorant  on  these  mat- 
ters, but,  in  addition,  that  men  are  not  governed 
by  logic  or  reason,  and  that  those  qualities  are  al- 
ways in  danger  of  being  swamped  by  the  non-ra- 
tional element  in  us,  by  sheer  impulse,  often  by  a 
non-rational  patriotism  which  conquers  interest  and 
sometimes  conquers  morality.    Thus  the  Spectator: 

For  ourselves,  as  far  as  the  main  economic  propo- 
sition goes,  he  preaches  to  the  converted.  ...  If 
nations  were  perfectly  wise  and  held  perfectly  sound 
economic  theories,  they  woiild  recognize  that  exchange 
is  the  union  of  forces,  and  that  it  is  very  foolish  to  hate 
or  be  jealous  of  your  co-operators.  .  .  .  We  are  abso- 
solutely  convinced  that  burglary  is  the  poorest  of  all 
trades. 

What,  then,  if  the  mam  propositions  are  just, 
is  the  basis  of  the  criticism?     It  is  that  though 


Methods 


367 


we  do  not  accuse  the  German  people  of  being  a 
nation  of  burglars — they  are  anything  but  that — 
unfortunately,  the  dominant  and  governing  caste  in 
Germany  has,  as  we  have  stated  above,  not  been 
converted  to  Mr.  Angell's  views,  true  as  they  may  be, 
but  holds  exactly  the  opposite  opinion. 

And  also  that 

Men  are  not  merely  money-making  machines,  but 
creatures  impelled  by  moral  motives,  using  the  word, 
of  course,  in  its  widest  sense.  Sometimes  a  passion 
for  expansion  or  domination  comes  over  them;  some- 
times they  seem  impelled  to  fight  for  fighting's  sake, 
or,  as  their  leaders  and  rhetoricians  vaguely  say,  to 
fulfil  their  destinies.  .  .  .  Men  are  savage,  blood- 
thirsty creatures  .  .  .  and  when  their  blood  is  up  will 
fight  for  a  word  or  a  sign,  or,  as  Mr.  Angell  would  put 
it,  for  an  illusion. 

Criticism  at  the  other  end  of  the  journalistic 
scale — that,  for  instance,  from  Mr.  Blatchford — 
is  of  an  exactly  similar  character.  Mr.  Blatchford 
says: 

Mr.  Angell  may  be  right  in  his  contention  that 
modem  war  is  unprofitable  to  both  belligerents.  I 
do  not  believe  it,  but  he  may  be  right.  But  he  is 
wrong  if  he  imagines  that  his  theory  will  prevent 
European  war.  To  prevent  European  wars  it  needs 
more  than  the  truth  of  his  theory:  it  needs  that  the 
war  lords  and  diplomatists  and  financiers  and  workers 
of  Europe  shall  believe  the  theory.    For  until  these 


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a     J 


men  are  fully  convinced  that  war  will  bring  no  ad- 
vantage to  the  victor,  war  will  continue  to  be,  as 
Clause witz  says,  a  part  of  policy.  So  long  as  the 
rulers  of  nations  believe  that  war  may  be  expedient 
(see  Clausewitz),  and  so  long  as  they  believe  they  have 
the  power,  war  will  continue.  • 

Therefore  this  book  is  futile;  for  that,  of  course, 
is  the  plainly  implied  conclusion. 

Now,  the  author  is  not  urging  disarmament,  or 
even  reduction  of  armament,  until  general  opinion 
in  the  countries  concerned  makes  it  safe,  so  that 
the  warning  has  no  force  on  that  score.  He  is 
tirging  that  the  only  solution  will  be  found  in  the 
reform  of  opinion.  He  is  in  complete  agreement 
with  the  propositions  of  the  critics:  these  truths 
are  not  realized  in  Germany;  they  are  realized  as 
little  in  that  country  as  they  are  in  England. 
That  is  what  caused  the  book  to  be  written;  and 
that  is  what  apparently,  in  the  opinion  of  so  many 
critics,  constitutes  its  main  defect. 

Note  how  the  proposition  works  out: 

The  war  lords  and  diplomats  are  still 
wedded  to  the  old  false  theories;  therefore  we 
shall  leave  those  theories  undisturbed,  and 
generally  deprecate  discussion  of  them. 

Nations  do  not  realize  the  facts;  therefore  we 
should  attach  no  importance  to  the  work  of 
making  them  known. 

These  facts  profoundly  aflect  the  well- 
being  of  European  peoples;  therefore  we  shall 


not   systematically   encourage   the   efficient 
study  of  them. 

If  they  were  generally  known,  the  practical 
outcome  would  be  that  most  of  our  difficulties 
herein  would  disappear;  therefore  any  one  who 
attempts  to  make  them  known  is  an  amiable 
sentimentalist,  a  theorist,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 

"Things  do  not  matter  so  much  as  people's 
opinions  about  things  '* ;  therefore  no  effort  shall 
be  directed  to  a  modification  of  opinion. 

The  only  way  for  these  truths  to  affect 
policy,  to  become  operative  in  the  conduct  of 
nations,  is  to  make  them  operative  in  the 
minds  of  men;  therefore  discussion  of  them  is 
futile. 

Our  troubles  arise  from  the  wrong  ideas  of 
nations;  therefore  ideas  do  not  count — they 
are  "theories." 

General  conception  and  insight  in  this 
matter  is  vague  and  ill-defined,  so  that  action 
is  always  in  danger  of  being  decided  by  sheer 
passion  and  irrationalism;  therefore  we  shall 
do  nothing  to  render  insight  clear  and  well- 
defined. 

The  empire  of  sheer  impulse,  of  the  non- 
rational,  is  strongest  when  associated  with 
ignorance  (e.g.,  Mohammedan  fanaticism, 
Chinese  Boxerism),  and  only  yields  to  the 
general  progress  of  ideas  (e.g.,  sounder  re- 
ligious notions  sweeping  away  the  hate  and 
horrors  of  religious  persecution) ;  therefore  the 
best  way  to  maintain  peace  is  to  pay  no  atten- 
tion to  the  progress  of  political  ideas. 

The  progress  of  ideas  has  completely  trans- 
formed religious  feeling  in  so  far  as  it  settles 

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I         I 


the  policy  of  one  religious  group  in  relation 
to  another;  therefore  the  progress  of  ideas  will 
never  transform  patriotic  feeling,  which  settles 
the  policy  of  one  political  group  in  relation 
to  another. 

What,  in  short,  does  the  argument  of  my  critics 
amount  to?  This:  that  so  slow,  so  stupid  is  the 
world  that,  though  the  facts  may  be  imassailable, 
they  will  never  be  learned  within  any  period  that 
need  concern  us.' 

Without  in  the  least  desiring  to  score  off  my 
critics,  and  still  less  to  be  discourteous,  I  some- 
times wonder  it  has  never  struck  them  that  in  the 
eyes  of  the  profane  this  attitude  of  theirs  must 
appear  really  as  a  most  colossal  vanity.  *'We'* 
who  write  in  newspapers  and  reviews  understand 

» As  I  correct  these  proofs  I  receive  from  a  correspondent  the 
leading  article  cut  from  an  evening  paper  (the  London  Evening 
News),  in  which  precisely  the  plea  that  I  am  dealing  with  is  put 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  Mars  and  Peace.  Mars  urges 
that  there  is  one  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  passions  which  make 
war: 

"'How  shall  I  do  that?*  asked  Peace. 

"Mars  smiled  grimly.  'I  don't  think  you  would  care  for  the 
job,'  he  said. 

"  *  But  I  can  be  very  brave  in  a  good  cause,*  said  Peace,  eagerly. 
'Tell  me  what  I  must  do.' 

"'Well,'  said  Mars,  'I  should  begin  by  exterminating  the 
human  race.' 

•"Yes,  you  would,'  said  Peace;  'but  I  shall  do  better.  I  shall 
educate  them.' 

'"Thank  goodness,'  said  Mars,  with  a  sigh;  'then  I  *m  safe  for 
another  thousand  years  at  least. ' " 


these  things;  "we''  can  be  guided  by  reason  and 
wisdom,  but  the  common  clay  will  not  see  these 
truths  for  "thousands  of  years."  I  talk  to  the 
converted  (so  I  am  told)  when  my  book  is  read 
by  the  editors  and  reviewers.  They,  of  course, 
can  understand;  but  the  notion  that  mere  diplo- 
mats and  statesmen,  the  men  who  make  up 
Governments  and  nations,  should  ever  do  so  is, 
of  course,  quite  too  preposterous. 

Personally,  however  flattering  this  notion  might 
be,  I  have  never  been  able  to  feel  its  soundness. 
I  have  always  strongly  felt  the  precise  opposite — 
namely,  that  what  is  plain  to  me  will  very  soon 
be  equally  plain  to  my  neighbour.  Possessing 
presumably  as  much  vanity  as  most,  I  am,  never- 
theless, absolutely  convinced  that  simple  facts 
which  stare  an  ordinary  busy  man  of  affairs  in 
the  face,  are  not  going  to  be  forever  hid  from  the 
multitude.  Depend  upon  it,  if  "we"  can  see 
these  things,  so  can  the  mere  statesmen  and  diplo- 
mats and  those  who  do  the  work  of  the  world. 

I  do  not  pretend,  of  course,  that  multitudes  are 
not  swayed  by  sheer  irrational  passion,  or  that  it 
is  much  good  pointing  out  even  the  plainest  facts 
at  the  height  of  a  war  fever.  But  everybody  is 
not  always  at  a  fever-point  of  irrationalism.  A 
change  of  opinion  which  would  admittedly  be  quite 
impossible  at  the  zenith  of  patriotic  transport  is 
quite  possible  and  feasible  when  the  Mafficker  is 
once  more  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind ;  and  what 


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he  will  leam  in  his  lucid  intervals  will  attenuate 
the  violence  of  his  outbursts,  even  if  it  does  not 
obviate  them  altogether. 

I  have,  of  course,  already  dealt  with  the  plea 
that  it  takes  "thousands  of  years*'  to  modify 
ideas  and  feeling,  which  are  the  factors  of  men's 
conduct.  In  this  connection  I  would  recall  only 
one  incident  that  I  have  cited :  a  scene  painted  by 
a  Spanish  artist  of  the  Court  and  nobles  and 
populace  in  a  great  European  city,  gathered  on  a 
public  hoUday  as  for  a  festival  to  see  a  beautiful 
child  bumed  to  death  for  a  faith  that,  as  it  plain- 
tively said,  it  had  sucked  in  with  its  mother's 

milk. 

How  long  separates  us  from  that  scene?    Why, 
not  the  lives  of  three  ordinarily  elderly  people. 
And  how  long  after  that  scene— which  was  not 
an  isolated  incident  of  uncommon  kind,  but  a 
very  everyday  matter,  typical  of  the  ideas  and 
feelings  of  the  time  at  which  it  was  enacted— 
was  it  before  the  renewal  of  such  became  a  prac- 
tical impossibility?     It  was  not  a  hundred  years. 
It  was  enacted  in  1680,  and  within  the  space  of  a 
short  lifetime  the  world  knew,  that  never  again 
would  a  child  be  bumed  ahve,  as  the  result  of  a 
legal  condemnation  by  a  duly  constituted  Court 
and  as  a  public  festival,  witnessed  by  the  King 
and  the  nobles  and  the  populace,  in  one  of  the 
great  cities  of  Europe. 

Or,  do  those  who  talk  of  *' unchanging  human 


nature"  and  "thousands  of  years"  really  plead 
that  we  are  in  danger  of  a  repetition  of  such  a 
scene?  In  that  case  our  religious  toleration  is  a 
mistake.  Protestants  stand  in  danger  of  such 
tortures,  and  should  arm  themselves  with  the  old 
armoury  of  religious  combat — the  rack,  the  thumb- 
screw, the  iron  maiden,  and  the  rest — as  a  matter 
of  sheer  protection. 

"Men  are  savage,  bloodthirsty  creatures  and 
will  fight  for  a  word  or  a  sign,"  the  Spectator  tells 
us,  when  their  patriotism  is  involved.  Well, 
until  yesterday  it  was  as  true  to  say  that  of  them, 
when  their  religion  was  involved.  Patriotism  is 
the  religion  of  politics.  And  as  one  of  the  greatest 
historians  of  religious  ideas  has  pointed  out^: 
"  religion  and  patriotism  are  the  chief  moral  in- 
fluences to  which  the  relations  of  great  bodies  of 
men  have  been  subjected,"  and  "the  separate 
modifications  and  mutual  interaction  of  these  two 
agents  may  almost  be  said  to  constitute  the  moral 
history  of  mankind." 

But  is  it  likely  that  a  general  progress  which 
has  transformed  religion  is  going  to  leave  patri- 
otism unaffected;  that  the  rationahzation  and 
humanizing  which  have  taken  place  in  the  more 
complex  domain  of  religious  doctrine  and  belief 
will  not  also  take  place  in  the  domain  of  politics? 
The  problem  of  religious  toleration  was  beset 

*  Lecky,  History  of  the  Progress  of  Rationalism  in  Europe, 


1 

I 


HI 

if 


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with    difficulties   incalculably   greater   than   any 
which   confront   us   in  this  problem.     Then,   as 
now,  the  old  order  was  defended  with  real  dis- 
interestedness :  then  it  was  called  religious  fervour ; 
now  it  is  called  patriotism.    The  best  of  the  old 
inquisitors  were  as  disinterested,  as  sincere,  as 
single-minded  as  are  doubtless  the  best  of  the 
Prussian  Junkers,   the  French   Nationalists,  the 
English  militarists.     Then,  as  now,  the  progress 
towards  peace  and  security  seemed  to  them  a 
dangerous  degeneration,  the  break-up  of  faiths, 
the  luidermining  of  most  that  holds  society  to- 
gether.    Then,  as  now,  the  old  order  pinned  its 
faith  to  the  tangible  and  visible  instruments  of 
protection — I  mean  the  instrtunents  of  physical 
force.     And  the  Catholic,  in  protecting  himself 
by  the  Inquisition  against  what  he  regarded  as 
the  dangerous  intrigues  of  the  Protestant,  was  pro- 
tecting what  he  regarded,  not  merely  as  his  own 
social  and  political  security,  but  the  eternal  sal- 
vation, he  believed,  of  unborn  millions  of  men. 
Yet  he  surrendered  such  instruments  of  defence, 
and  finally  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike  came  to 
see  that  the  peace  and  seciuity  of  both  were  far 
better  assured  by  this  intangible  thing — the  right 
ideas  of  men — than  by  all  the  mechanical  in« 
genuity   of   prisons   and   tortures   and   burnings 
which  it  was  possible  to  devise.     In  like  manner 
will  the  patriot  come  finally  to  see,  that  better 
than  Dreadnoughts  J  will  be  the  recognition  on  hi& 


part  and  on  the  part  of  his  prospective  enemy, 
that  there  is  no  interest,  material  or  moral,  in 
conquest  and  military  domination. 

And  that  himdred  years  which  I  have  men- 
tioned as  representing  an  apparently  impassable 
gulf  in  the  progress  of  European  ideas,  a  period 
which  marked  an  evolution  so  great  that  the  very 
mind  and  nature  of  men  seemed  to  change,  was  a 
hundred  years  without  newspapers,  almost  with- 
out books,  a  time  in  which  books  were  such  a 
rarity  that  it  took  a  generation  for  one  to  travel 
from  Madrid  to  London;  in  which  the  steam 
printing-press  did  not  exist,  nor  the  railroad,  nor 
the  telegraph,  nor  any  of  those  thousand  con- 
trivances which  now  make  it  possible  for  the 
words  of  an  English  statesman  spoken  to-night 
to  be  read  by  sixty  million  Germans  to-morrow 
morning — to  do,  in  short,  more  in  the  way  of  the 
dissemination  of  ideas  in  ten  months  than  was 
possible  then  in  a  century. 

When  things  moved  so  slowly,  a  generation  or 
two  sufficed  to  transform  the  mind  of  Europe  on 
the  religious  side.  Why  should  it  be  impossible  to 
change  that  mind  on  the  political  side  in  a  genera- 
tion,or  half  a  generation, when  things  move  so  much 
more  quickly?  Are  men  less  disposed  to  change 
their  political  than  their  religious  opinions  ?  We  all 
know  that  not  to  be  the  case.  In  every  cotmtry 
in  Europe  we  find  political  parties  advocating,  cr 
at  least  acquiescing  in,  policies  which  they  strenu- 


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HI 

m 


^^M 


w 


ously  opposed  ten  years  ago.  Does  the  evidence 
available  go  to  show  that  the  particular  side  of 
politics  with  which  we  are  dealing  is  notably 
more  impervious  to  change  and  development  than 
the  rest— less  within  the  reach  and  influence  of 

new  ideas? 

I  must  risk  here  the  reproach  of  egotism  and 
bad  taste  to  call  attention  to  a  fact  which  bears 
more  directly  on  that  point,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  that  could  be  cited. 

It  is  some  fifteen  years  since  it  first  struck  me 
that  certain  economic  facts  of  oiu*  civilization — 
reacting  bourses,  a  synchronized  bank  rate  in  all 
the  economic  capitals  of  the  world,  and  so  on— 
would  soon  force  upon  the  attention  of  men  a 
principle  which,  though  existing  for  long  past  in 
some  degree  in  human  affairs,  had  not  become 
operative  to  any  extent,  because  there  were  no 
simple  dramatic  visible  factors,   such  as  those 
which  I  have  mentioned  (the  result,  after  all,  of 
the  mechanical  progress  of  the  last  thirty  or  forty 
years),  to  bring  it  home  vividly  to  them.     Was 
there  any  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the  material 
facts  involved?    Circumstances  of  my  occupation 
happily  furnished  opportunities  of  discussing  the 
matter  thoroughly  with  bankers  and  statesmen  of 
world-wide  authority.    There  was  no  doubt  on 
that  score.    Had  we  yet  arrived  at  the  point  at 
which  it  was  possible  to  make  the  matter  plain  to 
general   opinion?    Were   politicians   too   ill-edu- 


cated on  the  real  facts  of  the  world,  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  rough-and-tumble  of  workaday 
politics  to  change  old  ideas?  Were  they,  and  the 
rank  and  file,  still  too  enslaved  by  the  hypnotism 
of  an  obsolete  terminology  to  accept  a  new  view? 
One  could  only  put  it  to  a  practical  test.    A  brief 
exposition  of  the  cardinal  principles  was  embodied 
in   a   brief   pamphlet   and   published   obscurely 
without  advertisement,  and  bearing,  necessarily, 
an  unknown  name.     The  result  was,  all  considered , 
startling,  and  certainly  did  not  justify  in  the  least 
the  plea  that  there  exists  universal  hostihty  to 
the  advance  of  political  rationahsm.     Encourage- 
ment  came  'from   most   unlooked-for   quarters: 
pubHc   men   whose   interests   had   been   mainly 
military,  alleged  Jingoes,  and  even  from  soldiers. 
The  more  considerable  edition  has  appeared  in 
English,  German,  French,  Dutch,  Danish,  Swedish, 
Spanish,  ItaHan,  Russian,  and  Japanese.    Editions 
are  in  preparation  in  Turkish,  Persian,  and  Hindu- 
stani, and  all  so  far  embarked  on  as  purely  com- 
mercial undertakings.    Nowhere  has  the  Press 
completely  ignored  the  book.     Papers  of  Liberal 
tendencies  have  welcomed  it  everywhere.    Those 
of  more  reactionary  tendencies  have  been  much 
less  hostile  than  one  could  have  expected. ' 

« I  do  not  desire  in  the  least  of  course  to  create  the  impression 
that  I  regard  the  truths  here  elaborated  as  my  "discovery,"  as 
though  no  one  had  worked  in  this  field  before.  Properly  speaking, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  priority  in  ideas.     The  interdependence 


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The  Great  Illusion 


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Does  such  an  experience  justify  that  luiiversal 
rebelHousness  to  political  rationalism  on  which  my 
critics  for  the  most  part  found  their  case?  My 
object  in  calling  attention  to  it  is  evident.  If 
this  is  possible  as  the  result  of  the  effort  of  a 
single  obscure  person  working  without  means 
and  without  leisure,  what  could  not  be  accom- 
plished by  an  organization  adequately  equipped 
and  financed?  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  says  some- 
where: *'Some  opinions,  bold  and  erect  as  they 
may  still  stand,  are  in  reality  but  empty  shells. 
One  shove  would  be  fatal.    Why  is  it  not  given?" 

If  Httle  apparently  has  been  done  in  the  modi- 
fication of  ideas  in  this  matter,  it  is  because  little 
relatively  has  been  attempted.  Millions  of  us 
are  prepared  to  throw  ourselves  with  energy  into 
that  part  of  national  defence  which,  after  all,  is 

of  peoples  was  proclaimed  by  philosophers  three  thousand  years 
ago.  The  French  school  of  pacifists — Passy,  Follin,  Yves  Guyot, 
de  Molinari,  and  Estoumelles  de  Constant — have  done  splendid 
work  in  this  field:  but  no  one  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
undertaken  the  work  of  testing  in  detail  the  politico-economic 
orthodoxy  by  the  principle  of  the  economic  futility  of  military 
force;  by  bringing  that  principle  to  bear  on  the  everyday  problems 
of  European  statecraft.  If  there  is  such  an  one — presenting 
the  precise  notes  of  interrogation  which  I  have  attempted  to 
present  here — I  am  not  aware  of  it.  This  does  not  prevent,  I 
trust,  the  very  highest  appreciation  of  earlier  and  better  work 
done  in  the  cause  of  peace  generally.  The  work  of  Jean  de 
Bloch,  among  others,  though  covering  different  groimd  to  this, 
possesses  an  erudition  and  bulk  of  statistical  evidence  to  which 
this  can  make  no  claim.  The  work  of  J.  Novikow,  to  my  mind 
the  greatest  of  all,  has  already  been  touched  upon. 


Methods 


379 


only  a  makeshift,  into  agitation  for  the  building 
of  Dreadnoughts  and  the  raising  of  armies,  the 
things  in  fact  which  can  be  seen,  where  barely 
dozens  will  throw  themselves  with  equal  ardour 
into  that  other  department  of  national  defence, 
the  only  department  which  will  really  guarantee 
security,  but  by  means  which  are  invisible— the 
rationalization  of  ideas. 

The  only  permanent  revolutions  in  the  history 
of  civilization  are  those  that  result  from  a  revo- 
lution of  ideas.     In  the  absence  of  such,  "the 
more  it  changes  the  more  it  is  the  same  thing,'* 
and  in  the  absence  of  such  one  may  remake  the 
map  of  Europe,  and  in  a  short  time  we  should  be 
starting  the  same  old  weary  process  over  again. 
That,  indeed,  is  the  history  of  the  attempt  to 
settle  this  thing  by  force.     "  Dynamite,"  said  the 
late  head  of  the  Russian  Holy  Synod,  "is  almost 
innocuous  compared  with  the  destructive  force  of 
a  new  idea."     And  the  defender  of  the  old  order 
in  Russia,  and  the  leader  of  those  fighting  against 
the  new,  was  probably  as  good  a  judge  of  the  force 
both  of  new  ideas  and  dynamite  as  any  man  m 

Europe. 

I  am  aware,  of  course,  of  the  relative  failure  of 
peace  movements  in  the  past,  but  think  that  failure 
can  be  explained  by  two  cardinal  errors:  (i)  The 
hypnotism  of  the  short-cut— i.e.,  the  desire  to 
bring  about  formal  agreements  between  rival 
governments    whUe    yet    opinion    behind    those 


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381 


governments  is  animated  by  the  sense  of  rivalry, 
still  strong  with  the  feeHng  that  in  military  force 
resides  latent  or  positive  advantage;  and  (2)  the 
attempt  to  reform  opinion  by  appeal  to  an  abstract 
principle,  the  justification  for  which  is  felt  to  be 
mainly  moral. 

As  to  the  first  point,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected 
while  political  philosophy  remains  what  it  is,  and 
while  diplomacy  accepts  it  as  an  axiom  that  the 
power  and  pride  and  prosperity  of  a  State  rests 
upon  its  arms,  that  agreements  will  lead  to  any- 
thing more  than  a  temporary  checking  of  the  rate 
of  increase  or  a  slight  diminution  of  the  weight 
which  Europe  carries.  Such  agreements  can  only 
serve  to  keep  armaments  just  below  the  breaking- 
point.  Not  by  such  means  have  the  forward 
steps  of  the  past  been  taken.  The  struggle  for 
religious  freedom  was  not  gained  by  agreements 
drawn  up  between  Catholic  States  and  Protestant 
States,  or  even  between  Catholic  bodies  and 
Protestant  bodies.  No  such  process  was  possible, 
for  in  the  last  resort  there  was  no  such  thing  as  an 
absolutely  Catholic  State  or  an  absolutely  Pro- 
testant one.  Our  security  from  persecution  is 
due  simply  to  the  general  recognition  of  the  futility 
of  the  employment  of  physical  force  in  a  matter 
of  religious  belief.  Otu*  progress  towards  political 
rationalism  will  take  place  in  like  manner. 

French  politics  have  given  us  this  proverb:  I 
am  the  leader,  therefore  I  follow.    This  is  not 


mere  cynicism,  but  expresses  in  reality  a  profound 
truth.     What   is  a  leader  in  a  modem   ParUa- 
mentary  sense?    It  is  a  man  who  holds  office  by 
virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  represents  the  mean  of 
opinion  in  his  party.     Initiative,  therefore,  cannot 
come  from  him  until  he  can  be  sure  of  the  support 
of  his  party— that  is,  until  the  initiative  in  question 
represents  the  common  opinion  of  such  party.     It 
happened  to  the  author  to  discuss  the  views  em- 
bodied in  this  book  with  a  French  Parliamentary 
chief,  who  said  in  effect:  "Of  course,  you  are 
talking  to  the  converted,  but  I  am  helpless.     Sup- 
pose that  I  attempted  to  embody  these  views 
before  they  were  ready  for  acceptance  by  my 
party:   I   should   simply  lose  my  leadership  in 
favour  of  a  man  less  open  to  new  ideas,  and  the 
prospect  of  the  acceptance  of  such  would  be  not 
increased,  but  diminished.    Even  if  I  were  not 
already  converted,  it  would  be  no  good  trying  to 
convert  me.    Convert  the  body  of  the  party,  and 
its  leaders  will  not  need  conversion.** 

That,  surely,  is  the  position  more  or  less  of 
every  party  leader  throughout  the  world. 

It  seems  ungracious  to  insist  upon  the  futility 
of  so  much  earnest  and  disinterested  effort, 
prompted  by  motives  which  are  so  splendid,  but 
I  esteem  the  average  pacifist  too  highly  to  beheve 
him  the  wildly  unpractical  person  he  is  generally 
represented,  or  the  sort  of  person  that  will  not 
face  facts.    Well,  what  are  the  facts?    They  are 


3^2 


The  Great  Illusion 


Methods 


383 


that  he  is  for  the  most  part  regarded  with  intense 
prejudice  as  a  sentimentalist,  a  fanatic,  a  dreamer, 
and  not  in  touch  with  the  workaday  world.  That 
is  the  common  attitude  towards  him  as  much  in 
America,  or  France,  or  Germany,  as  in  England. 
But  would  such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
average  man  of  the  world  ever  have  arisen  if  he 
had  based  his  advocacy  simply  and  purely  upon 
interest?  We  may  believe  that  the  bimetalUst, 
or  the  Protectionist,  or  the  suffragette,  or  even  the 
Socialist,  is  wrong,  but  neither  one  of  them  has 
to  meet  the  widespread  prejudice,  the  active  hot- 
blooded  dislike,  which  the  average  sensual  man — 
or,  for  that  matter,  the  average  sensual  newspaper 
— ^reserves  for  the  *'peace-at-any-price  man.*' 

And  this  hostility  is  the  more  extraordinary 
because  I  am  absolutely  persuaded — and  even  the 
militarists,  as  I  have  shown,  are  with  me  in  this — 
that  the  natural  tendencies  of  the  average  man 
are  setting  more  and  more  away  from  war.  He  is 
quite  ready  to  believe  in  peace,  once  he  is  per- 
suaded that  it  is  safe  to  do  so. 

Does  not  the  evidence  given  in  the  opening  chap- 
ters of  both  the  first  and  second  parts  of  this  book 
indicate  sufficiently  the  root  of  the  profoimd  dis- 
trust of  and  hostility  to  the  peace  man?  Is  it 
not  because  his  plea  has  been  made  rather  on  the 
basis  of  altruism  than  of  interest,  on  morality 
rather  than  of  policy?  The  man  in  the  street  is 
firmly  convinced  that  he  is  being  asked  to  sur- 


render some  solid  interest  in  favour  of  morality — 
"  sentiment,"  as  he  would  call  it— that  the  *'  peace- 
at-any-price  man"  is  thinking  too  Httle  of  his 
country  and  too  much  of  others. 

I  know  quite  well,  of  course,  that  the  pacifist 
is  perfectly  ready  to  face  this  unpopularity,  and 
that  he  does  not  advocate  peace  in  the  expectation 
of  gaining  popularity  thereby.  But  that  is  not 
the  point.  If  his  purpose  is  the  crown  of  martyr- 
dom, why,  of  course,  nothing  more  is  to  be  said; 
but  I  am  assuming  that  his  object  is  the  accom- 
plishment of  ^  definite  end — the  abolition  or 
reduction  of  armament.  The  good  soldier  is  not 
afraid  to  die,  but  a  soldier  may  be  killed  quite  as 
much  because  he  is  inefficient  as  because  he  is 
brave.  It  is  part  of  good  soldiership  not  to  get 
killed,  and  to  accomplish  the  end  in  view. 

I  know  it  is  also  urged  (Tolstoi  urges)  that  the 
demand  for  peace  ought  not  to  be  based  on  selfish- 
ness ;  that  the  moral  plea  should  occupy  the  front 
rank,  and  that  the  moral  plea  is  the  most  effective. 
If  that  is  the  case,  how  does  one  account  for  the 
ordinary  man's  distrust  of  peace  advocacy?  Is 
it  that  he  regards  the  peace  man  as  too  ma- 
terialistic, and  selfish,  and  immoral? 

I  challenge  most  absolutely  the  whole  premise 
that  the  consideration  of  one's  interest  is  immoral. 
What  is  morality  but  the  codification  of  the  laws 
of  general  interest?  Is  it  immoral  for  a  man  to 
refrain  from  alcohol  because  his  health  is  better 


384 


The  Great  Illusion 


Methods 


385 


without  it?  The  result,  in  any  case,  is  sobriety, 
but  the  result  of  the  peace  advocate's  present 
method  is  that  the  drunkard  drinks  more  than 
ever,  because,  so  much  has  he  heard  of  his  soul 
and  so  Httle  of  his  body,  that  he  has  firmly  got  it 
into  his  head  that  he  will  be  bundled  straight  into 
his  coffin  the  moment  he  stops!  And  he  is  even 
told  by  some  of  the  advocates  that  he  must  not 
mind  that,  because  "self-preservation  is  not  the 
final  law,  and  the  progress  of  himianity  may 
demand  the  extinction   (in  this  world)   of  the 

individual!"' 

All  this  mischief  has  to  be  imdone,  and  the 
plane  of  the  whole  discussion  shifted  to  that  of 
policy  and  interest. 

One  cannot  too  often  or  too  emphatically 
present  the  parallel  which  exists  between  the 
growth  towards  rationaUsm  on  the  religious  side 
and  upon  the  political.  As  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  Lecky,  the  most  authoritative  his- 
torian of  the  subject,  insists  that  the  dominating 
factor  in  the  progress  towards  rationalism  on  the 
rehgious  side  was  precisely  the  material  necessity 
and  the  material  interest  of  men.  "  Not  only 
does  interest  as  distinct  from  passion  become  the 
greater  with  advancing  civilization,  but  passion 
itself  is  mainly  guided  by  its  power." 

What  precedes  has,  I  hope,  established  clearly 

« See  citations,  Chapter  I.,  Part  I. 


this:  while  in  given  circumstances  it  may  be 
necessary  to  protect  ourselves  from  attack  by  the 
maintenance  of  armaments,  there  is  another  pro- 
cess of  accomplishing  exactly  the  same  result — 
i.e.f  removing  the  motive  for  attack  on  the  part 
of  the  prospective  rival.  The  latter  method  has 
this  advantage  over  the  former — it  must  in  the 
end,  if  operative,  lead  to  complete  peace  and  the 
disappearance  of  costly  means  of  securing  it. 
The  other  method  may  achieve  peace,  but  is  just 
as  likely,  in  view  of  our  human  nature,  to  lead  to 
collision,  and  will,  in  any  case,  lead  to  a  condition 
of  things  materially  costly  to  both  sides. 

No  one  challenges  the  general  truth  of  these 
propositions;  indeed,  they  are  almost  self-evident. 
No  one  challenges  the  truth  that  at  the  bottom 
of  armaments  lies  the  question  of  policy.  Yet 
what  are  those  most  active  in  national  defence 
doing  to  clarify  the  question  of  policy,  to  secure 
the  operation  of  the  second  method,  the  only  one 
in  the  end  leading  away  from  armaments? 

Nothing  at  all. 

Astonishing  as  this  may  sound,  it  is  the  absolute 
truth. 

Yet  there  are  nimiberless  points  at  which  a 
start  could  be  made.  The  co-operation  of  the 
parliamentary  parties  of  the  two  coimtries  mainly 
concerned,  athwart  their  frontiers,  irrespective 
of  the  action  of  their  respective  Governments, 
would,  of  course,  effect  wonders. 


i 


III 


386 


The  Great  Illusion 


It  is  not  generally  realized  in  England  how 
favourable  the  present  moment  is  for  some  such 
definite  campaign. 

The  discussion  of  the  Navy  Estimates  in  the 
Reichstag  early  in  March,  1910,  revealed  the 
most  deep-seated  opposition  in  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic party  to  the  naval  poHcy  of  the  German 
Government. 

One  speaker  made  use  of  an  argument  which  is 
very  much  to  the  point  in  our  discussion.  "  What 
will  be  the  final  result,"  he  argued,  "of  our  pushing 
England  into  this  increased  expenditure?  Simply 
that  she  will  adopt  Protection  to  find  the  money. 
Inflated  military  expenditure  is  the  one  road  to  a 
Protective  tariff.  How  will  our  manufacturers, 
looking  to  the  general  English  foreign  markets, 
relish  this  development?"  He  might  have  argued 
that  a  great  German  Navy,  far  from  being  the 
means  of  finding  new  markets,  was  thus  leading 
straight  to  the  closing  of  such  as  already  existed. 

Surely  here  is  common  gromid  enough  for  a 
beginning.  The  Daily  Mail  itself  is  witness  to 
this  same  strong  tendency.  In  its  telegrams  from 
Berlin  (see  July  18,  19 10)  is  a  message  to  the 
effect  that  *'Mr.  Asquith's  disclosure  that  the 
German  Government  declined  to  discuss  a  naval 
understanding  with  Britain  on  the  ground  that 
German  public  opinion  was  opposed  to  such  a 
step  arouses  astonishment  and  indignation.** 
Still  more  recently  the  new  Chancellor,   Herr 


Methods 


387 


Bethmann  von  Hollweg,  has  come  back  to  the 
same  inevitable  point.  "  The  discussion  of  policy,*' 
he  said,  "must  precede  discussion  of  armament 
agreement.  There  must  be  agreement  concerning 
the  economic  and  poHtical  interests  of  the  two 
countries.** 

We  must  find  some  means  of  setting  up  co- 
operation between  the  anti-aggressionist  parties  of 
both  coimtries.  Whatever  plan  is  devised  must 
reUeve  those  adhering  to  it  from  the  charge  of 
being  indifferent  to  national  security,  that  charge 
which,  even  when  levelled  by  the  least  responsible 
element  on  either  side  of  the  frontier,  is  so  powerful 
in  paralyzing  useful  effort.  We  must  find  some 
means  of  neutralizing  the  operation  of  this 
Gresham  Law  in  politics.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  detail  the  mechanism  of  such  a  movement. 
It  must  insure  primarily  these  things:  such  co- 
operation between  parties  embodying  the  same 
idea  as  to  guarantee  a  consciousness  on  the  part 
of  each  as  to  the  work  and  tendencies  and  opinions 
of  the  other.  That  is  to  say,  that  those  opposed 
to  aggression  and  big  armaments  in  England 
should  be  thoroughly  aware  of  the  extent  of  the 
similar  movement  in  Germany,  and  means  should 
be  taken  of  making  English  opinion  generally 
equally  so.  The  same,  of  course,  should  be  true 
of  Germany  with  reference  to  England.  Some 
means  should  be  found  of  insuring  the  simul- 
taneity of  the  withdrawal  of  support  of  the  arma- 


n 


r 


388 


The  Great  Illusion 


ment  policy,  some  practical  system  of  ''pairing," 
so  that  neither  country,  by  virtue  of  the  campaign 
of  rationalism,  should  find  itself  in  a  relatively 
inferior  position  to  the  other.    If  an  anti-arma- 
ment league  were  formed  in  England,  it  should 
be  an  essential  feature  of  the  organization  that 
for  every  member  enrolled  in  England  a  cor- 
responding league   should   enroll  a   German   in 
Germany.    The  same  principle  would  be  applied 
to  Parliamentary  parties :  a  German  member  of  the 
Reichstag  would  undertake  to  oppose  increase  of 
German  armaments  on  condition  that  an  English 
member  xmdertook  to  carry  on  such  opposition  in 
the  House  of   Commons.    The  same  principle 
could  be  extended  to  the  clergy,  university  pro- 
fessors, students,  trade-unions,  and  so  on. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  in  contradiction  to 
the  principle  laid  down  farther  back  that  *'so  long 
as  current  political  philosophy  in  Europe  remains 
what  it  is,  I  would  not  urge  the  reduction  of  our 
War  Budget  by  a  single  sovereign  or  a  single 
dollar."    But  it  is  in  no  way  in  contradiction. 
The  whole  plan  implies  that  should  the  propa- 
ganda reach  the  point  of  affecting  expenditure  on 
armaments,  political  philosophy  would  no  longer 
be  what  it  is,  because  a  change  similar  to  that  taking 
place  in  England  would  have  gone  on  in  those 
countries  whose  policy  has  direct  bearing  on  hers. 
The  advance  of  political  rationalism  would  by  the 
means  proposed  go  on  pari  passu  in  England  and 


Methods 


389 


Germany,  and  neither  country  could  by  reason 
of  its  anti-armament  propaganda  find  itself  mili- 
tarily in  a  position  of  manifest  inferiority  to  the 
other,  so  long  as  the  general  principle  outlined 
here  were  adhered  to. 

I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  the  "pairing**  could 
never  be  absolute;  one  member  of  the  Reichstag 
would  not  have  an  absolutely  identical  power 
with  his  fellow  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  the 
principle  could  be  applied  in  practice  so  as  roughly 
to  guarantee  that  element  of  simultaneity  which 
is  necessary  in  the  movement,  and  which  would 
render  any  individual  in  England  allying  himself 
therewith  immune  from  the  Jingo  charge  of  in- 
difference to  his  country's  defence.  His  country*s 
defence  would  be  in  no  way  threatened,  since  the 
balance  of  armament  between  England  and,  say, 
Germany  wotdd  be  in  no  way  affected  by  his 
action. 

But  with  it  all  must  go  the  campaign  of  edu- 
cation, shrewdly  and  efficiently  conducted  (as 
shrewdly  and  efficiently  conducted,  for  instance, 
as  are  some  of  our  Jingo  newspapers),  with  due 
regard  to  the  demands  of  strategy  and  tactics. 
Fewer  frontal  attacks  on  entrenched  prejudices; 
the  best  results  will  be  obtained  by  flank  and 
turning  movements. 

Let  me  illustrate.  I  have  succeeded,  in  an 
hour's  talk,  in  giving  an  intelligent  boy  of  twelve 
a  clearer  grasp  of  the  real  meaning  of  money  and 


390 


The  Great  Illusion 


the  mechanism  of  credit  and  exchange  than  is 
possessed  by  many  a  man  of  my  acquaintance 
running  large  businesses.     Now,  if  every  boy  in 
America,  England,  and  Germany  could  have  as 
clear  an  idea  of  the  real  nature  of  wealth  and 
money,  it  would,  in  ten  years'  time,  be  an  utter 
impossibility  to  organize  a  war  scare.     For  those 
boys  would  then  constitute  a  great  part  of  the 
active  pubhc  opinion  of  their  time,  and  would 
have  at  least  some  dim  conception  of  the  preposter- 
ousness  of  the  ideas  upon  which  military  aggres- 
sion is  based.     Is  there  any  enormous   difficulty 
in  insuring  that  our  youth  should  get  such  simple 
lessons  in  finance?    The  Education  Department 
of  each  country  concerned  is  now  so  organized 
as  to  make  the  thing  entirely  feasible,  and  the 
introduction  into  the  educational  curriculum  of 
each  cotmtry,  of  some  such  brief  lesson,  in  which 
scrupulous  care  should  be  taken  to  see  that  not  a 
word  concerning  peace,  or  war,  or  armaments  was 
mentioned,  would  be  a  simple  matter  for  a  few 
resolute  men  determined  to  carry  it  out.    And 
one  of  the  strongest  positions  of  the  Jingo  would 
be  undermined  without  his  having  the  least  idea 
of  what  was  taking  place. 

And  this  is  but  an  example— but  a  detail  of  a 
hundred  like  ones  that  would,  if  employed  with  the 
right  direction  and  the  right  method,  make  a 
campaign  of  this  kind  irresistible. 

May  it  not  be  hoped  that  the  Anglo-Saxon 


Methods 


391 


race,  by  virtue  of  its  practical  genius  and  its 
positive  spirit,  is  destined  to  lead  the  way  in  this 
reformation  as  it  has  led  the  way  in  past  political 
and  religious  reformations,  and  in  such  revolutions 
as  that  involved  in  the  abandonment  of  the  duel? 
I  believe  that,  if  the  matter  were  put  efficiently 
before  them  with  the  force  of  that  sane,  practical, 
disinterested  labotir  and  organization  which  have 
been  so  serviceable  in  the  past  in  other  forms  of 
propaganda — the  final  coup  de  grdce  to  the  slave 
trade  was  given  by  the  labour  of  two  or  three 
Englishmen — not  only  would  they  prove  particu- 
larly responsive  to  the  labour,  but  Anglo-Saxon 
tradition  would  once  more  be  associated  with  the 
leadership  in  one  of  those  great  moral  and  intel- 
lectual movements  which  would  be  so  fitting  a 
sequel  to  her  leadership  in  such  things  as  human 
freedom  and  parliamentary  government.  Failing 
such  effort  and  such  response,  what  are  we  to 
look  for?  Are  we,  in  blind  obedience  to  primitive 
instinct  and  old  prejudices,  enslaved  by  the  old 
catchwords  and  that  curious  indolence  which 
makes  the  revision  of  old  ideas  impleasant,  to 
duplicate  indefinitely  on  the  political  and  econo- 
mic side,  a  condition  from  which  we  have  liberated 
ourselves  on  the  religious  side?  Are  we  to  con- 
tinue to  struggle  as  so  many  good  men  struggled 
in  the  first  dozen  centuries  of  Christendom, 
spilling  oceans  of  blood,  wasting  mountains  of 
treasure,  to  achieve  what  is  at  bottom  a  logical 


m 


m 


"J 


392 


The  Great  Illusion 


absurdity,  to  accomplish  something  which,  when 
accompUshed,  can  avail  us  nothing,  and  which, 
if  it  could  avail  us  anything,  would  condemn  the 
nations  of  the  world  to  never-ending  bloodshed 
and  the  constant  defeat  of  all  those  aims  which 
men,  in  their  sober  hours,  know  to  be  alone  worthy 
of  sustained  endeavour? 


APPENDIX 

LONG  before  the  old  monopoly  conception  of 
owning  colonies  had  been  finally  abandoned 
by  England  it  had  broken  down  in  practice.  In- 
deed, it  is  doubtful  if  England  had  ever  made  a 
profit  out  of  the  Colonies  in  the  sense  that  the  land- 
owner makes  profit  out  of  an  estate.  Even  in  what 
may  be  termed  the  pre-democratic  period,  when  the 
Colonies  were  not  self-governing  States,  the  profit 
of  ownership  was  never  anything  but  a  chimera, 
as  Adam  Smith  in  the  eighteenth  century  and 
Seeley  in  the  nineteenth,  and,  for  that  matter, 
all  the  competent  authorities,  have  completely 
shown. 

One  of  the  most  acute  and  most  authoritative 
historians  of  the  colonial  movement  is  Sir  J.  R. 
Seeley,  Regius  Professor  of  Modem  History  in 
the  University  of  Cambridge,  author  of  The  Ex- 
pansion of  England,  The  following  passages  are 
taken  from  his  lectures  on  "The  Expansion  of 
England": 

It  has  been  observed  by  Dr.  Merivale  that  the  old 
Colonial  system  admitted  no  such  thing  as  the  modem 
Crown  Colony,  in  which  Englishmen  are  governed 

393 


4 

4 


^ 


394 


The  Great  Illusion 


administratively  without  representative  assemblies. 
In  the  old  system  assemblies  were  not  formally  in- 
stituted, but  grew  up  of  themselves,  because  it  was 
the  nature  of  Englishmen  to  assemble.  Thus  the 
old  historian  of  the  Colonies,  Hutchinson,  writes 
under  the  year  1619,  "This  year  a  House  of  Burgresses 
broke  out  in  Virginia."  And  assuredly  the  Home 
Government  in  those  times  did  not  sin  by  too  much 
interference.  So  completely  were  the  Colonies  left 
to  themselves  that  some  of  them,  especially  those  of 
New  England,  were,  from  the  very  beginning  for 
most  practicable  purposes,  independent  States.  As 
early  as  1665,  only  forty  years  after  the  first  settle- 
ment, and  a  hundred  years  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  I  find  that  Massachusetts  did  not 
regard  itself  as  practical!  y  sub j ect  to  England.  '  *  They 
say,"  writes  a  commissioner,  "that  so  long  as  they 
pay  a  fifth  of  all  gold  and  silver,  according  to  the 
terms  of  the  Charter,  they  are  not  obliged  to  the 
King  except  by  civility." 

Thus  the  old  British  colonial  system  practically 
was  not  at  all  tyrannous,  and  when  the  breach  came, 
the  grievances  of  which  the  Americans  complained, 
though  perfectly  real,  were  smaller  than  ever  before  or 
since,  and  yet  led  to  such  mighty  consequences.  The 
misfortune  of  that  system  was  not  that  it  interfered 
too  much,  but  that  such  interference  that  it  admitted 
was  of  an  invidious  kind.  It  claimed  very  little, 
but  what  it  did  claim  was  unjust.  It  gave  unbounded 
liberty  except  in  one  department — namely,  trade — 
and  in  that  department  it  interfered  to  fine  the  Colon- 
ies for  the  benefit  of  home-traders.  Now,  this  was  to 
put  the  Mother-Cotmtry  in  a  false  position.     It  put 


Appendix 


395 


her  forward  as  claiming  to  treat  the  Colonies  as  a 
possession,  as  an  estate  to  be  worked  for  the  benefit 
of  those  Englishmen  who  remained  at  home.  No 
claim  could  be  more  invidious. 

Now,  it  is  essentially  barbaric  that  one  community 
should  be  treated  as  the  property  of  another,  and 
the  fruits  of  its  industry  confiscated,  not  in  return 
for  benefits  conferred,  but  by  some  absolute  right, 
whether    of    conquest    or    otherwise.     Even    where 
such  a  relation  rests  avowedly  upon  conquest,  it  is  too 
immoral  to  last  long,  except  in  a  barbarous  state  of 
manners.     Thus,  for  example,  we  may  have  acquired 
India  by  conquest,  but  we  cannot,  and  do  not,  hold 
it  for  our  own  pecuniary  advantage.    We  draw  no 
tribute  from  it;  it  is  not  to  us  a  profitable  investment; 
we  should  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge  that  in  govern- 
ing it  we  in  any  way  sacrificed  its  interest  to  our 
own.     A  fortiori,  then,  it  is  barbaric  to  apply  such  a 
theory  to  Colonies,  for  it  is  to  treat  one's  own  county- 
men,  those  with  whom  we  have  no  concern  at  all, 
except  on  the  ground  of  kindred,  as  if  they  were 
conquered  enemies,  or  rather  in  a  way  in  which  a 
civilized  nation  cannot  treat  even  conquered  enemies. 
In  fact,  though  the  advance  of  civilization  has  not 
as  yet  abolished  wars,  nor  even,  perhaps,  diminished 
the  frequency  of  them,  yet  it  has  very  much  trans- 
formed their  character.     Conquest  is  nominally  still 
possible,  but  the  word  has  changed  its  meaning.     It 
does  not  now  mean  spoliation  or  the  acquisition  of 
any  oppressive  lordship,  so  that  the  temptation  to 
make  conquests  is  now  very  much  diminished.    Thus 
our  possession  of  India  imposes  upon  us  vast  and 
almost  intolerable  responsibilities.     This  is  evident, 


1 


II 


I, 


396 


The  Great  Illusion 


but  it  is  not  at  once  evident  that  we  reap  any  benefit 
from  it. 

We  must,  therefore,  dimiss  from  our  minds  the  idea 
that  India  is  in  any  practical  sense  of  the  word  a 
possession  of  England.  In  ordinary  language,  the  two 
notions  of  property  and  government  are  mixed  up  in  a 
way  that  produces  infinite  confusion.  We  speak  of 
India  as  "our  magnificent  dependency"  or  "the 
brightest  jewel  in  the  English  diadem";  we  use 
metaphors  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  primi- 
tive ages  and  from  a  state  of  society  which  has  long 
passed  away.  India  does,  indeed,  depend  on  England 
in  the  sense  that  England  determines  her  condition  and 
her  policy,  and  that  she  is  governed  by  Englishmen, 
but  not  in  the  sense  that  she  renders  service  to  Eng- 
land, or  makes  England  directly  richer  or  more  power- 
ful. And  thus  with  respect  to  India,  as  with  respect 
to  the  Colonies,  the  question  confronts  us  on  the 
threshold  of  the  subject:  What  is  the  use  of  it? 
Why  do  we  take  the  trouble  and  involve  ourselves 
in  the  anxiety  and  responsibility  of  governing  two 
htmdred  millions  of  people  in  Asia? 

The  whole  power  of  Spain  could  not  in  eighty  years 
conquer  the  Dutch  provinces  with  their  petty  popula- 
tion. The  Swiss  could  not  be  conquered  in  old  time, 
nor  the  Greeks  the  other  day.  Nay,  at  the  times 
when  we  made  the  first  steps  in  the  conquest  of  India, 
we  showed  ourselves  wholly  unable  to  reduce  to 
obedience  three  millions  of  our  own  race  in  America, 
who  had  thrown  oflE  their  allegiance  to  the  English 
Crown. 

Who  does  not  know  the  extreme  difficulty  of  re- 
pressing the  disaJBEection  of  a  conquered  population? 


Appendix 


397 


Over  and  over  again  it  has  been  found  impossible, 
even  where  the  superiority,  both  in  the  nimiber  and 
efficiency  of  troops,  has  been  decidedly  on  the  side  of 
the  conquerors.  When  the  Spaniards  failed  in  the 
Low  Countries,  they  were  the  best  soldiers,  and  Spain 
by  far  the  greatest  State  in  Christendom;  for  the 
instinct  of  nationality,  or  of  separate  religion,  more 
than  supplies  the  place  of  valour  or  of  discipline,  being 
diffused  through  the  whole  population  and  not  con- 
fined to  the  fighting  part  of  it. 

When  on  the  eve  of  the  declaration  of  independence 
of  the  American  Colonies  Adam  Smith  was  taking  a 
broad  survey  of  the  economic  position  of  the  British 
Empire  and  its  constituent  parts,  he  was  forced  to 
the  conclusion  that  the   Mother-Country,   through 
this  extension  of   Empire,   had  gained  nothing  in 
military  power  or  in  revenue  for  the  general  advantage 
of  the  Empire,  and,  in  fact,  had  suffered  loss,  as  shown 
by  the  great  increase  in  the  National  Debt.     As 
regards  the  monopoly,  two  more  sentences  may  be 
quoted  of  the  nature  of  a  general  summary.     "In 
the  exclusive  trade,  it  is  supposed  consists  the  great 
advantage  of  provinces  which  have  never  yet  af- 
forded either  revenue  or  military  force  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  civil  government  or  the  defence  of  the 
Mother-Country."     But  as   regards   the   results  of 
this  exclusive  trade  we  are  told:  "Under  the  pres- 
ent system  of  management,  therefore,  Great  Britain 
derives  nothing  but  loss  from  the  dominion  which  she 
assumes  over  her  Colonies."     Even  as  regards  trade, 
the  monopoly  has  only  displaced  a  more  advantageous 
trade  with  Europe,  and  not  increased  the  aggregate 
volume. 


39^ 


The  Great  Illusion 


Appendix 


399 


I 


m\\ 


•■  I 


I 


It  is  admitted  that  a  particiilar  order  of  men — 
namely,  the  merchants  who  trade  with  the  Colonies- 
may  have  benefited  from  the  monopoly,  but  their 
gain  has  been  at  the  expense  of  the  bulk  of  the  nation. 
Nor  can  this  gain  be  taken  from  the  favoured  class  by 
taxation  for  the  benefit  of  the  nation.  "The  men 
whose  revenue  the  monopoly  increases  constitute  a 
particular  order  which  it  is  both  absolutely  im- 
possible to  tax  beyond  the  proportion  of  other 
orders,  and  extremely  impolitic  to  tax  beyond  that 
proportion. 

The  general  result  is  that  the  provinces  of  the  British 
Empire  had  not  contributed,  and  at  the  time  of  writ- 
ing did  not  contribute,  their  fair  share  either  towards 
the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  Civil  Government  of  the 
whole  Empire,  or  towards  the  ordinary  expense  for 
their  own  defence  of  a  permanent  character,  or  to- 
wards the  extraordinary  expense  that  was  incurred  in 
times  of  war,  even  though  these  wars  were  undertaken 
on  account  of  the  provinces  themselves. 

And  the  irony  of  the  whole  situation  lay  in  the 
fact  that,  owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  the  principal 
Colonies  were  preparing  the  way  for  political  separa- 
tion from  the  country  to  which  they  owed  so  much. 
The  irritation  caused  by  the  imposition  of  taxes, 
ostensibly  for  imperial  purposes,  of  such  small  extent 
that  they  would  not  pay  the  expenses  of  collection — 
"peppercorn  rents,"  "shearing  the  wolf" — was 
sufficient  to  cut  asunder  for  ever  the  ties  which  it  was 
sought  to  tighten. 

Adam  Smith  had  no  illusions  as  to  the  weakness 
of  the  British  Empire,  and  of  the  causes  of  that 
weakness. 


Til 


The  following  quotations  from  Adam  Smith, 
in  view  of  what  has  actually  taken  place,  are 
suflaciently  suggestive: 

Countries  which  contribute  neither  revenue  nor 
military  force  towards  the  support  of  the  Empire 
cannot    be    considered    as    provinces.     They    may, 
perhaps,  be  considered  as  appendages,  as  a  sort  of 
splendid  and  showy  equipage  of  the  Empire.   .   .   . 
The  rulers  of  Great  Britain  for  more  than  a  century 
past  amused  the  people  that  they  possessed  a  great 
empire  on  the  west  side  of  the  Atlantic.     This  empire 
has  hitherto  existed  in  imagination  only.     It  has 
hitherto  been  not  an  empire,  but  the  project  of  an 
empire;  not  a  gold-mine,  but  the  project  of  a  gold- 
mine— a  project  which  has  cost,  which  continues  to 
cost,  and  which,  if  pursued  in  the  same  way  as  it  has 
been  hitherto,  is  likely  to  cost,  immense  expense  with- 
out being  likely  to  bring  any  profit.     It  is  surely  now 
time  that  our  rulers  should  either  realize  this  golden 
dream  in  which  they  have  been  indulging  themselves, 
perhaps,  as  well  as  the  people,  or  that  they  should 
awake  from  it  themselves  and  endeavour  to  awaken 
the  people.     If  the  project  cannot  be  completed,  it 
ought  to  be  given  up.     If  any  of  the  provinces  of  the 
British  Empire  cannot  be  made  to  contribute  towards 
the  support  of  the  whole  Empire,  it  is  surely  time  that 
Great  Britain  should  free  herself  from  the  expense  of 
defending  those  provinces  in  time  of  war,  and  of 
supporting  any  part  of  the  civil  or  military  estab- 
lishments in  time  of  peace,  and  endeavour  to  ac- 
commodate her  future  views  and  designs  to  the  real 
mediocrity  of  her  circumstances. 


400 


The  Great  Illusion 


Appendix 


401 


1 


Confronted  with  this  alternative  of  abandon- 
ment or  organization,  Adam  Smith  himself  had 
no  hesitation: 

To  propose  that  Great  Britain  should  voluntarily 
give  up  all  authority  over  her  Colonies,  and  leave  them 
to  elect  their  own  magistrates,  to  enact  their  own  laws, 
to  make  peace  and  war,  as  they  might  think  proper, 
would  be  to  propose  such  a  measure  as  never  was,  and 
never  will  be,  adopted  by  any  nation  in  the  world. 
.  .  .  The  most  visionary  enthusiasts  would  scarce  be 
capable  of  proposing  such  a  measure  with  any  serious 
hopes,  at  least,  of  its  ever  being  adopted. 

All  the  European  colonies  have,  without  exception, 
been  a  cause  rather  of  weakness  than  of  strength  to 
their  respective  mother-countries.  So  much  for  the 
increase  of  military  power.  As  regards  revenue,  "the 
colonies  of  Spain  and  Portugal  only  have  contributed 
any  revenue  towards  the  defence  of  the  mother- 
country  or  the  support  of  her  Civil  Government. 
The  taxes  which  have  been  levied  on  those  of  other 
European  nations — upon  those  of  England  in  par- 
ticular— have  seldom  been  equal  to  the  expense  laid 
out  upon  them  in  time  of  peace,  and  never  sufficient 
to  pay  that  which  they  occasioned  in  time  of  war. 
Such  colonies,  therefore,  have  been  a  source  of  ex- 
pense and  not  of  revenue  to  their  respective  mother- 
countries. 

As  is  shown  at  the  conclusion  of  Book  V.,  in  the 
two  wars  against  Spain  and  France,  the  American 
Colonies  cost  Great  Britain  much  more  than 
double  the  sum  which  the  National  Debt  amotmted 


to  before  the  commencement  of  the  first  of  them 
(1739): 

Had  it  not  been  for  those  wars,  the  debt  might,  and 
probably  would,  by  this  time  (1776)  have  been  com- 
pletely paid;  and,  had  it  not  been  for  the  Colonies, 
the  former  of  these  wars  might  not,  and  the  latter 
certainly  would  not,  have  been  undertaken. 

At  the  Conference  of  Colonial  Premiers  in  Lon- 
don in  1897  Mr.  Chamberlain,  as  Colonial  Secre- 
tary, is  officially  reported  as  saying: 

Yon  will  find  that  every  war,  great  or  small,  during 
the  reign  of  Victoria  in  which  we  have  been  engaged 
has  had  at  bottom  a  colonial  interest — that  is  to  say, 
either  of  a  Colony  or  of  a  great  Dependency  like  India! 
This  is  absolutely  true,  and  is  likely  to  remain  true 
to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  If  we  had  no  Empire, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  our  military  and  naval  re^ 
sources  would  not  require  to  be  maintained  at 
an3rthing  like  the  present  level. 


INDEX 


Acceleration,  law  of,  191,  194, 

215 
Adam,  Paul,  205 
Aflalo,  132 

Alsace  and  Algeria,  128-129 
Anglo-German     conflict,     hu- 
mours of,  141 

real     object    of    Germany, 
145-146 
Anti-SocicUistische    Korrespon- 

denz,  252 
Archbishop  of  Armagh,  172 
Argentina,  69,  74 
Aristotle  on  the  State,  295 
Asia  Minor  and  Germany,  129, 

141-143 
Asquith,  no,  113,  282 
Attila,  55 

Australian  Colonies   117,   126 
Austria  and  Bosnia,  44,  303 

Bachelor  of  Arts,  227 

Bacon,  294 

Balfour,  282 

Bank  of  England,  if  German 

army  looted,  54-55 
Baring,  41 
Barracks,  moral  influence  of, 

256-257 
Barrfes,  T.,  205 
Baty,  T.,  on  "Stratification," 

327-328 


403 


Bertillon,  Dr.,  38 
Bethmann-HoUw^,  von,  253, 

387 
Biermer,  Professor,  98 
Birrell,  Augustine,  378 
Bismarck,  79,  95-96 
Bjornson,  325 

Blackwood* s  Magazine,  20, 203 
Blatchford,   Robert,   19,  204, 
251,  256,  308,  339,  367 

on  Germans,  317 
Bloch,  Jean  de,  378 
Block,  Maurice,  97,  98 
Blum,  Hans,  99 
Bluntschli,  168 
Bourget,  Paul,  205 
Brazil,  69,  74 
British  Columbia,  117 
Bnmeti^re,  205 
Buckle,  271 

Bulow,  Prince  von,  204,  253 
Bulgaria,  69 

Caivano,  Tomasso,  225 
Cambronne,  288 
Canada  and  the  Empire,  109- 
III,  125 

French  in,  133 
Carlyle,  223 
Central  America,  causes  of  its 

larger  credit,  75 
Chamberlain,  77,  120,  212,  310 


I 


404 


Index 


Clausewitz,  368 

Cleveland,  227 

Colombia,  222-223 

Colonial  Empires  in  history, 

35.235-236 
Conquest  in  past  and  present, 

50.51 
Contemporary  Review,  336,  347 

Cox,  Edmund  C,  347 

Credit  of  the  small  States  and 

the  Great  Powers  of  Europe, 

3B,  39 
Cromwell,  348 
Cuba,  War  of,  237-238 

Daily  Mail,  132,  203,  251,  253, 

337.  365.  386 
Daily  Telegraph,  253 
Dawson,  Harbutt,  204,  254 
Delbruck,  Professor,  253,  331, 

347 
Demolins,  Edmond,  255 

D^roul^de,  205 

Dervish  mind,  278 

in  fight,  289 
Deutsche  Revue,  338,  346 
Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  113 
Dillon,  Mr.,  102 
Disraeli,  348 
Doyle,  112 

Dreyfus  case,  248-250 
Drumont,  205 
Duel,  213 

decay  of,  282 

kcho  de  Parisy  204 

Economical  and  intellectual  in- 
terdependence of  the  modern 
world,  187-189,  264-265 

Economist^  20,  365     ,/ 


England  and  Germany,  35 
and  Canada,  37,  68,  71 
power  of,  5 

Esher,  Lord,  159 

Estoumelles  de  Constant,  378 

Evening  News,  370 

Faguet,  205 
Farrar,  Dean,  iff 
Figaro,  204 
Finland,  69 

Fisher,  Admiral,  349-350 
Follin,  378 

Fortnightly  Review,  18 
France  and  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian War,  83,  85 
and  Germany  in  1 870-1 880, 

95 

Fried,  317 

FriedenswartCt  Die,  317 
Froude,  311 

Gaulois,  204 

German    trade    and    EngUsh 
credit,  87,  88,  103 
social    progress    and    mili- 
tarism, 255 
Democracy,  252 
Socialism,  252 
Germany  and  Alsatia,  37 
and  England,  3,  5,  6,  13-14. 
16,  17,  20-23,  31-33.  57- 
62,  63-70,  80-81 
industry  of,  5 
Navy  of,  6 
and  France,  81 
Gibbon,  267 

Goltz,  von  der,  157,  159 
Great  Britain,  Colonies  of,  34- 

35. 90-91 


Index 


405 


Great  Britain,  oversea  trade,  119 

and  India,  232 
Gresham  Law,  165 
Grey,  Sir  Edward,  364 
Grotius,  157 
Grubb,  Edward,  7 
Guyot,  Yves,  378 

Hale,  Dr.  Bayard,  340,  348 

Hamburg,  supposititious  an- 
nexation, 59-62 

Harms,  Professor  Bernard,  346- 
347 

Harden,  Maximilian,  250 

Harrison,  Frederic,  6,  26,  29, 
30,  31.  32-36,  40,  63,  65,  67, 
69.  72,  77.  126,  334 

Henty,  279 

Hobson,  J.  A.,  172 

Holland,  if  annexed  by  Ger- 
many, 45-48 

Hughes,  Thomas,  172 

Huxley,  177 

H3mdman,  308 

Ibsen,  325 

L* Information,  54 

Internationalism,  318-321 
in  Capitalism,  322-323 
in  Socialism,  321-322 
in  Trade  Unionism,  320-322 

James,  Professor  William,  170- 

171,  292 
John  Bull,  116 
Johnson,  Sir  Harry,  145 
Journal,  Paris,  38 
Journal  des  Dibats,  204 

Kidd,  Benjamin,  18 


f  Kingsley,  Charles.  171 
Kitchener,  Lord,  196,  280 
Koester,  Grand  Admiral  von, 
21 

Kolnische     Zeitung     {Cologne 

Gazette),  88 
Kotze  scandal,  250 
Kropotkin,  Prince,  206 
Kruger,  Paul,  116 

Laurier,  Sir  Wilfrid,  no,  in 
Lea,  General  Homer,  166,  167, 

200-202,  203,  204,  208,  209, 

219.  223,  224,  229,  231,  281, 

293.  312 
Lecl^r,  373,  384 
Lloyd,  George,  190 
Loti,  Pierre,  238 
Low,  Sidney,   170,  208.  224, 

237,  246 
Lucas.  Sir  C  P.,  108,  112,  300, 

301 

Machiavelli,  43 

Mahan,  Admiral,  19,  155,  156, 
160,  229,  324,  325,  335,  336 
Maltby,  309 

Manchester  Guardian,  285 
Marshall,  A.,  132 
Martin,  T.  G.,  19 
Matin,  10,  25 

McClure's  Magazine,  171,  293 
McDougal,  Professor  William, 

309.  3" 
Messimy,  221 

Militarism  and  decay  in  his- 
tory, 243-246 
new   and   old   conceptions, 
279-294  . 


4 


4o6 


Index 


Index 


407 


Militarization  in  Europe,  229 
in  France,  221 
in  Germany,  220,  250-256 
in  South  America,  222,  225, 
240,  241 

Millevoye,  205 

Milner,  Lord,  1 14 

Modem    finance,    interdepen- 
dence of,  52-53,  56-58 

Molinari,  de,  163,  378 

Moltke,  Marshal  von,  168, 169, 
218  229,  284,  293 

Monk,  no 

Morgan,  41 

Morocco,  understanding  of  Al- 

geciras,  54 
Murray,  Major  Stewart,  44 

Napoleon,  134 

Nationalism,  revival  of,  312- 

314 

National  Review,  17,  25,  203 

Newbolt,  Canon,  172 

New  Zealand,  126 

Nicaragua,  222-223,  228 

Nietzsche,  218 

Nineteenth  Century,  145.  I70, 

206, 347 

Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zei- 
tung,  {North  German  Ga- 
zette), 21,  323 

Norway,  mercantile  marine  of, 

41,70 
Novikow,  J.,  177.  206 

Observer^  26 
Oldenburg,  von,  252 
Outlook,  26 
Owen,  Douglas,  20 


Palmerston,  348 
Pan-Germanist  ambitions,  23- 

25,  45.  141 
Parasitism   and  police   work, 

261-264 
Passy,  F.,  378 
Patrie,  204 

Pearson,  Professor  Karl,  I77j 
Philip  II.,  271 
Phillips,  Captain  March,  256, 

290 

Pitt,  William,  348 

Presse,  La  (Canadian),  109 

Presse,  Paris,  204 
Preussische  Jahrbiicher,  253 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod 

in  Russia,  379 
Prussian  Junkers,  252, 283 
Public  Opinion,  78,  365 

Ratzenhofer,  163 

Referee,  20,  345 

Renan,  Ernest,  169,  218-224, 

284 
Review  of  Reviews,  349 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  97, 99* 

327 
Ritch,  L.  W.,  116 

Roberts,  Lord,  196 
Rome,  degeneration  of,  234 
Roosevelt,  169,  208,  209,  217, 

218,  220,  224,  226,  229,  259. 

284, 293 
Rosendahl,  Admiral,  338 
Rothschild,  41 
Runciman,  Sir  W.,  328 
Russia,  and  Japan,  83 

loans  of,  loi 

San  Domingo,  322-224 


Saturday  Review,  26 
Schulze-Gaevernitz,   Professor 

von,  6,  25 
Seddon,  80 
Seeck,  Dr.  Otto,  233 
Seeley,  120,  126,  233 
Selection  of  unfit  by  warfare, 

232-235 

Sepulchre,  Holy,  fight  for,  and 

its  lesson,  199 
Small    States,    prosperity    of, 
34,  38,  41,  42,  47,  69 

security  of,  42 
Smith,  Adam,  120 
Smith,  Sidney,  235 
Socialism  and  anti-militarism, 

308 
Soetbeer,  99 
South    Africa    and    England, 

114-115,  125 
South     America,     economical 
progress  of,  74-75.  241-243 

wars  in,  230 
South  Australia,  Germans  in, 

132 

Spain,  Colonies  of,  126,  237 

in  Spanish  America,  184 
Spain,  renaissance  of,  84  237- 

238 
Spanish   America,   lessons  of, 

222,  et  seq.,  239-241 
Spectator,  203,  341-344.  356- 

360,  365-3<'8 
Spencer,    Herbert,    177,    193, 

196,  224,  269 
Stead,  W.  T.,  5 
Steevens,  W.  H.,  280,  287,  289 
Steinmetz,  S.  R.,  164 
Strachey,  J.  St.  Loe,  19,  151 


Stengel,  Baron  Karl  von,  168, 

224,  229,  234 
Stern,  41 

Storey,  General  John  J.  P.,  167 
Switzerland,  commerce  of,  viii., 
66 

army  and  industry  of,  41 

and  Germany,  70 

Tennyson,  311 

Times,  17,  19,  26,  36,  116,  121, 
126,  218,  227,  248,  249,  323, 

354-356, 365 
Tolstoi,  Count,  8,  383 
Transvaal  and  England,  112- 

113 

Treaty  of  Frankfurt,  79 

Turkey  and  Arabia,  227-228 

Unfit,  selection  of,  by  warfare, 

232-235 
United  Service  Magazine,  18 
United  States,  bank  crisis  of, 

76 

Germans  in,  131-132 
Venezuela,  222-223,  224,  225- 

226,  228 
Vikings,  291-292 
Vorwaerts,  324 
Vox  de  la  Nacion,  226 

Watt,  151 

Wilkinson,  Spenser,  Professor, 
30,  297-298,  299,  305,  339, 

348 
Wilson,  H.  W.,  17 
Wirth,  Max,  97 
Withers,  76 
World,  19,  132,  203 
World's  Work,  340,  348 


n 


II 


■■■Hi 


Ji  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

O.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Coapl«t«  Cat«logu« 
on  application 


I 


By  James  Albert  Woodburn 

(Professor  of  American  History  and  Politics,  Indiana  Univera^) 

The  American  Republic  and  Its  Government. 

An  Analysis  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  with  a  Consideration  of  its  Funda- 
mental Principles  and  of  its  Relations  to  the 
States    and   Territories.       Octavo   (by   mail^ 


$2  20) 


net,  $2  00 


"A  sounder  or  more  useful  commentary  has  never  before 
seen  the  light.  Even  Mr.  James  Bryce's  study  of  the  'Ameri- 
can Commonwealth  '  must  on  the  whole  be  deemed  less  fruit- 
ful. Not  a  single  page  should  be  overlooked." — M.  W. 
Hazeltine  in  the  N,  V,  Sun. 

**  Every  citizen  that  wishes  to  obtain  a  clear  and  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  the  government  under  which  he  lives 
can  hardly  forego  acquaintance  with  this  work,  and  its  orderly 
arrangement  and  lucid  style  will  make  the  acquaintance  a 
pleasure  as  well  as  a  profit." — Indianapolis  News. 

Political  Parties  and  Party  Problems  in  the 
United  States.  A  Sketch  of  American 
Party  History  a  id  of  the  Development  and 
Operations  of  Pa  ty  Machinery,  together  with 
a  Consideration  o "  Certain  Party  Problems  in 
their  Relations  to  .Political  Morality.  Octavo 
(by  mail,  $2  20)        .        .        .        net^  $2  00 

**An  exceptionally  clear,  interesting,  and  impartial  history 
of  American  political  parties,  a  lucid  explanation  of  the  work- 
ings of  party  machinery,  and  a  strong  statement  of  the  moral 
evils  now  debasing  our  political  life,  and  the  remedies  which 
an  awakened  public  conscience  may  apply.  A  thoroughly 
good  book  for  the  school  and  for  the  study." — Outlook. 

Smnd  for  Dmacrlptioe  Circular 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


NBW  YORK 


LONDON 


f 


^ 


M  wotk  inApeoBabk  to  Mtudtnf§  of  Ametkan  Hiatotj* 


It 


The  Journal  of  the 

Debates  in  the  Convention 

Which  Framed 

The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States 

May-September,  1787 
As  Recorded  by  JAMES  MADISON 


J  Volumes, 


Edited  with  Introduction  and  Notes  b/ 
QAILLARD  HUNT 

8vo,    $4.SO  net  per  set.     Uniform  with  Lo4^e*s 
EdiHon  of  •*  The  FederaUst: 


»t 


These  two  Tolumes  comprise  Madison's  complete  record  of  the  proceed* 
ings  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  and  give  in  the  notes  comparative 
comments  based  upon  that  journal  and  the  less  complete  chronicles  of  the 
convention  made  by  Yates,  King,  and  Pierce. 

James  Madison's  contemporaries  generally  conceded  that  he  was  the 
leading  statesman  in  the  convention  which  framed  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  Sutes ;  but  in  addition  to  this  he  kept  a  record  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  convention  which  outranks  in  importance  all  the  other  writings  of 
the  founders  of  the  American  Republic.  He  is  thus  identified,  as  no  other 
man  is,  with  the  making  of  the  Constitution  and  the  correct  interpretation 
of  the  intentions  of  the  makers.  His  is  the  only  continuous  record  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  convention.  He  took  a  seat  immediately  in  front  of  the 
presiding  officer,  facing  the  members,  and  took  down  every  speech  or  motion 
as  it  was  made,  using  abbreviations  of  his  own  and  immediately  afterwards 
transcribing  his  notes  when  he  returned  to  his  lodgings.  A  few  motions 
only  escaped  him,  and  of  important  speeches  he  omitted  none.  The  pro* 
ceedings  were  ordered  to  be  kept  secret,  but  his  self-Imposed  task  of  reporter 
had  the  ofidal  sancdon  of  the  convention. 


Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

New  York  London 


MJ^?^'^  sttflfmaiy  at  present  mrsUlmble  at  tin 
political  history  of  the  United  States," 

Frank  H.  Hodder.  Professor  of  Ameriain  History  in  the 
University  of  Kansas. 


American  Political  History 

1763-1876 

By  Alexander  Johnsfoik 

Edited  and  Supplemented  by 

James  Albert  Woodbnm 

Pkofessor  of  History  and   Political  Science,   Indiana   Uni 

venity;  Author  of  '*  The  American  Republic." 

*•  Political  Parties  and  Party  Problems 

in  the  United  States,"  etc. 

In  two^rtt,  eaeh  complete  in  itself  and  indexed^  Oeaivo, 

Each,  net  $a,oo 

I.    The  Revolution,  the  Constitntion,  and  the  Growth 
of  Nationality.    1763-1832. 

a.    The  Slavery  Controversy,  Secession,  Civil  War. 
and  Reconstruction.    1 820-1876. 

These  volumes  present  the  principal  features  in  the  political  history 
of  the  United  States  from  the  opening  of  the  American  Revolution  to 
Che  dose  of  the  era  of  the  Reconstruction.  They  give  in  more  con- 
▼enient  form  the  series  of  articles  on  *' American  Political  History  **  con- 
tributed to  Lalor»8  "Cyclopedia  of  PoUtical  Science,  Political  Economy, 
•nd  Political  History,"  by  the  late  Professor  Alexander  Johnston, 

»T  ."  7^0  **  ****7*»  covering  the  whole  field  of  the  political  history  of  the 
United  States,    have  a  continuity  and  unity   of  purpose ;  i&troduced 
arranged  and  supplemented  as  they  have  been  by  Professor  Woodburn 
(who  contributes  a  very  necessary  chapter  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine)  they 

§  resent  a  complete  and  well-balanced  history  of  the  politics  of  the  United 
U.txa»"^Hart/ord  Courant, 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

New  York  Londoo 


r 


'A 


II 


, 


By  Arthur  Twining  Hadley 

(Ptdident  of  Yale  Uoiveraty) 

Economics.'  An  Account  of  the  Relations  be- 
tween Private  Property  and  Public  Welfare. 
Octavo,  gilt  top        .        .        .        ^/,  $2  50 

"  No  higher  compliment  can  be  paid  this  work  than  to  say 
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judicious  would  more  appropriately  characterize  it.  ,  .  . 
As  a  whole,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  results 
reached  by  Professor  Hadley  will  commend  themselves  to 
candid  thinkers  as  true.  ...  It  will  not  only  be  found 
invaluable  by  readers  at  large,  but  will  also  at  once  command 
the  attention  and  admiration  of  economists  the  world  over." 

**  It  is  difficult  to  exaggetrtte  the  wealth  of  thought  and  the 
keenness  of  analysis  contained  in  these  chapters.  Each  one  is 
crammed  full  of  matter,  presented  in  an  attractive  manner, 
illustrated  by  references  to  history  and  to  contemporary  busi- 
ness methods,  and  often  summed  up  in  some  phrase  or  some 
statement  of  likeness  or  unlikeness  that  is  pregnant  with  sug- 
gestiveness."— Prof.  Richmond  Mayo-Smith,  in  Political 
Science  Quarterly, 

Railroad  Transportation,  Its  History  and  Its 
Laws.    Crown  octavo  .         net,  $1  50 

'•Professor  Hadley*s  treatise  is  no  less  timely  than  it  is 
valuable.  .  .  .  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  work  is  the  result 
of  an  investigation  no  less  wide  than  exhaustive,  and  one  pos- 
sible only  to  a  thoroughly  equipped  man,  familiar  with  many 
modem  languages." — Nation. 

'•  Every  page  of  the  work  bears  witness  to  the  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  writer  on  the  subject,  and  to  his  equal  ability 
and  practical  sound  sense  in  its  discussion." — Literary  World. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

RBW  rORK  tOimill 


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